Nursing Home Negligence Leads to Man's Death
The Florida Personal Injury Lawyer Blog has posted an article on one of their cases about a "presuit meditation" of $400,000 a nursing home had to reach due to negligence in the care of a patient.
An elderly man who had Alzheimer's and was legally blind and his wife were placed in a nursing home in Boca Raton, FL. The man lived in a room in the facility because he needed more attention than his wife, who lived in a seperate apartment. The man was prone to wandering around the nursing home and often got lost. Notes were made on his charts and he was given an alarm bracelet to help manage it.
He visited his wife's apartment regularly with a medical attendant. However, one night his wife was out when he usually made his visit and the nursing home had notice of this. Despite the notification, alarm bracelet, and security guards around the building, the man still managed to get out and allowed to go outside by himself.
He was noted as missing from his room around 8pm...apparently his alarm bracelet wasn't working at the time. Around 8:50 the facility was told of an accident in which a pedestrian was struck by a car and killed. The fatality was identified as the missing nursing home patient.
While the suit was settled outside of court and is resolved, this is yet another example of nursing home negligence.
