A Disturbing Story From Florida: Nursing Home Resident’s Death Goes Unnoticed by Staff in Florida Nursing Home
Seventy-seven year old Gloria Baral was dying. She had cancer. She didn’t have much time left. But imagine her family’s shock when they walked into her room at the Orchard Ridge Care and Rehabilitation Center in New Port Richey, Florida, to find her slumped over in her wheelchair, dead. What was even worse was that she had been dead for quite some time.
When her daughter first walked into Gloria's room, she just thought that she was slumped over. Gloria's daughter immediately ran to her side to help Gloria up, only to notice that her mother’s body was no longer warm. In fact, her body was cold. How long had her mother gone unnoticed in this condition? Gloria’s daughter also noticed that there was no call button within reach of her mother. The nursing home informed the daughter that they had just recently checked on her mother. And according to the funeral home, Gloria’s time of death is listed as 9:00 a.m. on June 21, 2009. But Gloria’s daughter disputes that finding. She arrived at the nursing home about 9:30. How could a body get that cold in just under half an hour? No one will ever know what happened in the last hours of Gloria Baral’s life. They will never know if she suffered or passed peacefully. Gloria’s family has filed an official complaint against the nursing home and may well pursue legal recourse, to ensure that no other resident or family member will suffer in the same way.
Thanks go to our local CBS affiliate, WLTX, for picking up this story. It is critically important that the public be made aware of what is really going on inside our communities' nursing homes.
Lives can be devastated by the neglect that too often goes on inside nursing homes. We work for residents and their families when this happens. If your case meets our criteria, my firm will vigorously prosecute those who have inflicted these injuries upon your loved one. To tell us about your family member's treatment, call South Carolina attorney Michael Jeffcoat at 1-800-827-7898. Let’s see if we can help. There is no cost to you for a consultation.
