What is elopement?

Traditionally it's when two people go off and get married usually at some remote location. We say they eloped.

Sadly, in the nursing home context, elopement has a very different meaning. This is a word that we use when someone leaves the nursing home unattended.

Virtually all nursing home residents who need to be in a nursing home cannot leave the nursing home unattended, safely.

There are some residents who are very capable. They are simply demented. Many families have made the difficult decision to put their loved in a nursing home because their loved one has become confused. They can no longer be left at home alone on their own. They tend to wonder. They often get lost.

If a resident is confused, there are many hazards that they need to be protected from. We have had cases where residents have wandered into traffic and been injured or even killed. We have had cases where residents have wandered off and tragically drowned. Falls or other injuries increase when someone wanders away, is confused or lost.

We had a case where a man was walking his dog in the evening in the winter. He found a nursing home resident on the ground in a driveway of one of his neighbors. The resident had eloped from the nursing home, in the wintertime. It was very cold. He was wearing pajama bottoms and a t-shirt. He fell down and broke his hip. He was unable to get up. If this man had not found him, he certainly would have frozen to death. The man called 911. Paramedics responded. The resident had a broken hip and a severe case of hypothermia.

The police realized the man was a nursing home resident because he had a wristband. They called the nursing home and asked the nursing home if they had a resident by the man's name. The nursing home said that they did.

The policeman asked if that resident was in the nursing home. The nursing home claimed that he was. The policeman then asked the nurse who he was speaking with to go check on that resident. She went to check on that resident and for the first time discovered that that resident had left the nursing home. No one at the nursing home was even aware that the man had left the nursing home.

So they were not looking for him. Had the neighbor not found him, he certainly would have died. Had the neighbor not been out walking his dog and stumbled upon this poor resident, he literally would have frozen to death.

Recently at a local nursing home, a woman walked out of the nursing home in the middle of the night in the wintertime. She sat down on a bench right outside the nursing home and froze to death.

I have a friend who is a nurse who recently reported to me that one of the residents in the assisted living facility where she works frequently leaves the building and gets locked out. He does not intend to leave the building. It is likely he does not even understand that he is going outside when he walks through the back door. But the back door leads to outside and it locks behind him. Once he is outside, he cannot figure out how to get back in. He is confused and he needs assistance.

What should you do if you have a loved one who is in a nursing home who should not be permitted to go outside on their own?

You should ask the nursing home what their plan is to keep your loved one safe. In the case that we handled where the resident fell down and broke his hip after eloping out of the nursing home in the winter, we eventually filed a wrongful death lawsuit and took depositions.

We discovered that none of the doors leading to outside were locked. There was nothing stopping the residents from simply going through the door and finding themselves outside.

There are lots of things that a nursing home can do. If your loved one is in a locked unit where they are not permitted to go outside on their own, all the doors in that unit can easily be secured. Sometimes the button to release the door is simply placed up high where a resident would not think to look for it. Sometimes the door requires a code. Oftentimes the nursing home can literally write the code on the wall. If the resident is too confused to figure out how to get back inside the nursing home, they are likely too confused to read the security code and enter it into the keypad to go outside.

There is a device known as a wanderguard that a resident can wear. If they go near a doorway it sounds an alarm and the staff can respond and redirect the resident.

There are numerous devices that are used to locate things like a tile or an air tag. All of these devices can be used to keep track of the residents in a nursing home.

Nursing home residents are legally required to provide their residents with adequate supervision to prevent accidents. They are legally required to provide their residents with a safe environment. It is illegal and a breach of the standard of care for a nursing home to allow a resident who cannot be safely outside on their own to leave the nursing home unattended. It should literally never happen.

If someone you love has been neglected or abused in a nursing home, please call us at The Dickson Firm at 1 800 OHIO LAW as we would be happy to talk with you and help you in any way that we can.