Elder Law

Nursing Home Negligence Lawsuit Filed After Falling Death

By Levin & Perconti

Eighty-nine year old Agnes Hauser died at the Davenport Good Samaritan Society late last summer following a fall in her room at the nursing home. The Quad-City Times reported on the new suit which alleges nursing home negligence against the facility for its failure to properly asses Ms. Hauser as a fall risk, failure to develop adequate interventions to prevent the fall, and failure to properly train its staff to handle similar potential risks.

Ms. Hauser was only at the facility slightly more than three months before falling in her room. When taken to the nearby hospital, doctors discovered that she had broken her neck, and they put her in a neck halo. The halo required very close supervision and cleaning, because the halo caused her neck skin to rub and tear. Because of that, nursing home staff needed to provide aggressive care to wash the harmed area and remove dead skin. Ms. Hauser ultimately had to get the halo replaced, and died at the nursing home shortly after that replacement.

Ms. Hauser?s daughter filed the lawsuit which alleged that Good Samaritan was negligent in allowing her mother to fall at the facility. Nursing homes are required to fairly assess the risks posed to each particular resident?s health and safety. The facility must then take the appropriate steps to limit the chance of harm or injury accordingly. However, in this case, the nursing home is claimed to have failed by not properly ensuring that Ms. Hauser was never put into a position where the risk of her falling was high.

Injuries and negligence like this occur every day at nursing homes across the country. Falls, in particular, are all too common occurrence at these care facilities. What?s worse is that these harmful falls often begin a chain of medical complications that frequently ends in permanent disability or death. Our Chicago nursing home lawyers at Levin & Perconti fight every day for victims of this nursing home negligence. In one case out of Lake County, we successfully negotiated a $1 million settlement with the nursing home facility after a resident died from complications following a fall. As in the case of Ms. Hauser, the nursing home in Lake County knew that the resident was prone to falls but did nothing to limit the reoccurrence of the deadly accident.

Please seek representation if you know anyone who suffered similar injury or death due to preventable falls at a nursing home.

Full post as published by Illinois Nursing Home Abuse Blog on July 28, 2010 (boomark / email).