Many adult children in Louisiana and elsewhere face various challenges when seeking appropriate care facilities to provide for aging or ailing parents. When tragedies occur due to nursing negligence, anger and frustration set in. An intense desire for justice leads many to file medical malpractice lawsuits concerning injured or deceased parents.
A 68-year-old woman diagnosed with dementia a few years ago. She lived in a nursing home and apparently had a history of falling. The woman died in 2014, and a controversy erupted surrounding the incident, as the coroner’s office said it received three varying accounts from nursing staff members regarding what had happened.
The coroner said the cause of the woman’s death was positional asphyxia. She had been found in a contorted position, with her knees on a floor mat and her head against the bed, twisted toward the guardrail. Nursing home officials told the woman’s daughter that her mother died of natural consequences after falling out of bed. The daughter blames the nursing home for not providing appropriate supervision and care for her mother, knowing she was prone to falling and suffering injuries.
At one point, there was an alarm set up so that staff members would be immediately alerted if the woman fell. However, the device was disconnected at some point. Before her death, the woman had suffered a severe hematoma and substantial blood loss after another fall; yet, no alarm was reconnected after that incident. Her daughter filed a lawsuit in a court outside Louisiana after her mother’s death, alleging that an obvious pattern of nursing negligence caused her mother to die.
Source: arkansasonline.com, “Lawsuit accuses Little Rock nursing home of negligence in 68-year-old’s death“, Brandon Riddle, Nov. 4, 2016
