Nursing Home Must Pay for Death
The Delaware Supreme Court upheld a jury's $13 million wrongful death award to the survivors of an Alzheimer's disease victim who died after she was locked in a walk-in kitchen freezer of a nursing home and froze to death.
Julie Bailey, 60, of Lewes, an Alzheimer's patient at Beebe's Lewes Convalescent Center, wandered from her bed and was locked for more than four hours in the freezer. Mrs. Bailey had the intellectual capacity of a 2-year-old at the time of the December 2002 incident, states Fox 21 Delmarva online.
After hours of searching for her, the center's staff found Mrs. Bailey injured, frostbitten and stuck to the floor of the freezer in a frozen pool of her own urine. She died nearly a month later.
Possibly as a result of this incident, the Beebe Medical Center is handing control of the nursing home to investors who have experience in owning and operating long-term care facilities.