Her family knew the 77-year-old was dying from cancer, but they never expected to be the ones to find her dead.
"Not in a nursing home, maybe in our house or something, but not in a nursing home," her daughter told the local television news.
On June 21st, she says she and her husband went to visit her mother
after attending Sunday mass and dropping her daughter off at work. She
estimates their arrival at the facility was around 9:30 a.m. judging by
her daughter's time card, which clocked her in at 9:18 a.m. She says
it's about a 10-15 minute from her daughter's place of employment to
the nursing home where her mother was
staying.
When she walked into her mother's room, she says she knew something
was wrong because of the way her mother was sitting in her wheelchair.
"Her hand was on the ground and she was bent over in the wheelchair
and evidently nobody checked on her for I don't know how long," she
said. "I walked over and I pushed on her chest a couple of times and
she was ice cold. I went for her pulse and her arm was ice cold."
"They said somebody was in there and they just recently checked on
her and I said, 'If they did, why was she so cold and where was the
call button?' There was nothing there for her to even push. I don't
know if she suffered in the end or what," said the daughter. For more, read the story.
________________________________________________________________
Robert W. Carter, Jr. is a Virginia attorney whose law practice is
dedicated to protecting the rights of the victims of nursing
home and assisted living neglect and abuse in Richmond, Roanoke,
Norfolk, Lynchburg, Danville, Charlottesville, and across Virginia.
Posted on Wed, July 15, 2009
by Robert Carter
filed under