Checklist of Things That You Can Do if Someone You Love is in a Nursing Home and They Are at Risk for Elopement

We have posted numerous blogs on this website about elopement. As we have said many times, elopement typically refers to two people who have decided to travel to some location and get married, usually alone or with a small group of people, as opposed to having a large wedding.

Elopement in the nursing home industry means when a resident leaves the facility unattended. There are numerous residents who cannot leave the nursing home unattended. Some are confused. They have dementia. Some have other issues. Some have physical limitations.

There was a tragic case just recently where a woman at a nursing home in Warrensville, OH walked out the door and sat down on the patio and tragically froze to death. The nurse who was supposed to be taking care of her is now being criminally charged for her death.

The purpose of this blog is to give you a checklist of things that you can do if someone you love is in a nursing home and they are at risk for elopement. What do you do if your loved one is in a nursing home and they cannot leave that nursing home safely on their own?

1) Ask the nursing home to show you the individualized care plan for your resident.
Every nursing home is supposed to conduct a comprehensive assessment of each resident, and based on that comprehensive assessment, develop an individualized care plan that addresses all of the resident’s needs. Nursing homes are legally obligated to create an individualized care plan with measurable objectives and timetables for each resident. Ask the nursing home to show you your loved one's individualized care plan and ask them to point out to you the interventions that are in place to prevent your loved one from leaving the facility unattended.

2) Know where your loved one's room is located within the nursing home.
Where is your loved one's room? Is it close to the nursing station? Is it at the end of the hallway? Is it near a door? Talk with the nursing home about the location of your loved one's room. The closer to the nurses' station, the closer to the interior of the nursing home and the farther away from the exit doors, the safer your loved one will be.

3) Test the doors of their room.
Test the doors. Can your loved one simply leave the nursing home? If you walk out of your loved one's room, where is the closest door that leads to the outside? Is that door locked? Can you just open that door and find yourself outside. If you do open that door and find yourself outside, does the door lock behind you? Can you get back in? If the door is not locked on the inside but does lock once it is closed, it presents a grave risk to your loved one that they could go through that door and find themselves locked out of the nursing home. If that happens in the inclement weather, this could be a fatal danger to your loved one. The temperature is supposed to be -4 degrees tomorrow. No one can be outside in that weather. Further, your loved one will likely wander outside not dressed appropriately. They will likely simply have on what they wear in the nursing home. They certainly will not have a heavy coat and boots on. They may be in their slippers. They may be barefoot. This increases their risk when they are outside in cold weather.

4) Does the nursing home have enough staff to properly take care of its residents?
Ensure that the nursing home always has enough staff to monitor the residents and keep them safe. Nursing homes are legally obligated to provide their residents with adequate supervision. They are legally obligated to provide their residents with a safe environment. They absolutely cannot do that if they do not have enough staff. Does the nursing home where your loved one is a resident have enough staff? When you walk through the halls of the nursing home to get to your loved one's room, do you see nurses and aides walking through the hallways, in the residents' rooms? Do you see nurses at the nurses' station? If you are in your loved one's room and you push the call light, does someone come promptly? Does someone respond to that light? How long does it take for someone to respond? When you are visiting for your loved one, particularly if you are visiting with them for an extended period of time, do staff come in the room to check on your loved one? If you visit your loved one during meal time, is someone helping them eat? Is someone monitoring them?

5) Do the doors that lead outside stay locked or have alarms on them?
With respect to the doors, if the doors do open and they are not locked, do they have alarms on them? If they do have alarms and you open the door and the alarm goes off, does the staff attend to that door? Do they come running? An alarm is not of much value if nobody responds to it. So you need to check and see if the staff is responding to the call light when it is pushed and if they are responding to the door alarms.

6) Does the nursing home have a video monitoring system?
Ask the nursing home if they have a video monitoring system on the exterior doors that can be monitored from a central location? This is a very simple and very inexpensive system. We have a camera system in our office. We can see who is outside the door, we can see who is in our lobby. There is no reason for a nursing home not to have a simple system of cameras to keep an eye on all of their doors.

7) Does the nursing home have a system of regular bed checks and room checks?
Ask the nursing home if they have a system of regular bed checks and room checks? How often do they check on the residents in their rooms? How often are they supposed to check on the residents? How often are they actually checking on the residents? Ask the nursing home to show you documentation of how often your loved one was checked on over the course of the past week. They should have clear documentation of every time they checked on them.

8) Have there been incidents of wandering?
Ask the nursing home if they document incidents of wandering. What happens if your loved one is found wandering the hallways? What happens if your loved one is found in the dining room at 2:00 in the morning? What happens if your loved one goes out the door? Do they document the incident? Do they update the care plan? Do they contact the family members? Ask them what their policies are. Ask them to show you their policies.

9) Does the staff receive regular training about the risks of elopement?
Ask the nursing home if they provide the staff with regular training relative to the risks associated with elopement. Is the staff being trained? Do they offer training programs? Does the staff who is taking care of your loved one attend those training programs?

10) Does the nursing home have care policies related to the risks of elopement?
Ask the nursing home to show you their patient care policies relative to elopement. Do they have patient care policies relative to elopement? Ask them to show you. Elopement can be fatal. We get calls on a regular basis from family members who are heartbroken because their loved one has eloped out of the facility and died as a result. They have fallen down and suffered a fracture. They have succumbed to the elements. They have wandered into traffic. They have drowned in a nearby pool or pond. We have heard many tragic stories involving elopement.

Elopement can be prevented. With some simple safety measures and some proper staffing, elopement can be prevented. If someone you love is in a nursing home, you need to find out from the nursing home what they are doing to keep your loved one safe. If they do not have answers to your questions, move your loved one to a safer facility.

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.

Elopement in Ohio Nursing Homes Can Quickly Lead to Resident Injuries or Death

We have written many times on this website about elopement. Elopement typically means when two people run off and get married in some remote location. Tragically, in the nursing home industry, elopement means when someone who cannot leave the facility safely, leaves the facility unattended.

The winter weather creates a particular danger with respect to elopement. Temperatures have been in the single digits lately. This is a concern for everyone. My children's school was closed because the school did not want young kids waiting for the bus in such frigid temperatures. The same frigid temperatures pose a very real and very serious threat to nursing home residents who should not be allowed to leave the nursing home unattended.

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.

Recently, an Ohio nursing home allowed an 84-year-old woman to walk out of the facility through an exit door that closed and locked behind her. She tragically froze to death on the patio. Alvera Meuti was at The Avenue at Warrensville Care and Rehabilitation Center in Cleveland, Ohio when she disappeared from her room on the night of December 23, 2024.

A nurse at the facility, Amber Henderson, is facing a felony count of involuntary manslaughter in connection with Meuti's death. She is named in the family's complaint as a defendant along with the nursing home for her alleged failure to report Meuti's disappearance and provide her with adequate supervision.

At 9:30 p.m. on December 23, 2024, Amber Henderson went into Alvera Meuti's room and Ms. Meuti was not there. And yet, Amber Henderson did not make any report. She did not take any action. She did not contact Ms. Meuti’s family.

When the weather is as cold as it is, time is of the essence. Nursing homes are legally obligated to provide their residents with adequate supervision to prevent accidents. They are legally obligated to provide their residents with a safe environment. When a nurse or a nurse’s aid discovers that a residents is not where she is supposed to be, the nursing home must immediately locate her. The resident might have eloped out of the facility, and if the weather is as cold as it is, she is in grave danger. The resident might be somewhere she is not supposed to be.

Elopement leads to questions, including:
- Can an Ohio nursing home be held liable for injuries that occur when a resident goes missing?
- Who is ultimately responsible for a resident's elopement?
- How can I make sure that my loved one does not elope from an Ohio nursing home?
- Is the nursing home responsible for elopement – or is it the individual staff who was working?
- How will I (or will I) know if my loved one has eloped?
- Do I need to contact an attorney if my family member eloped from a nursing home?
- How can an attorney help me with an elopement claim?

We have been involved with cases where residents ingested cleaning supplies because they got into a cleaning cabinet or they got into the kitchen. We have been involved in cases where residents eloped and suffered horrible injury, if not death, because of the weather. We have been involved in cases where residents left the facility and fell outside of the facility and suffered a fracture. We have been involved in cases where residents left the facility and drowned in a nearby pond or pool. We have been involved in cases where residents eloped from the facility and wandered into traffic.

Ms. Meuti's family said that there was an exit door near her room that was left unlocked and had no keypad or alarm. This is inexcusable. We recently handled a case where a resident repeatedly eloped out of the facility. When we filed suit and began taking depositions, we discovered that none of the doors were locked. This resident was in a room at the end of the hall, far away from the nurse’s station, right next to a door leading to the outside and that door was always unlocked. Further, this resident eloped multiple times and the nursing home did nothing to prevent future elopements. Finally, the resident left the nursing home late at night in the freezing cold. He was found blocks away from the nursing home. He had fallen and broken his leg. He was wearing a t shirt and pajama bottoms and he was freezing cold. He died as a result.

There is no excuse for this. If there are residents in a nursing home who cannot leave the facility safely, unattended, then the doors must be locked. There are many ways to accomplish this. There can be a release lever that is placed high where a demented or confused resident would not think to look for it.

You can put a keypad on a door. You can even write the code for the keypad on the wall. If the resident is not safe to walk outside by themselves, they are probably not able to enter the key into the keypad.

Tragically, Alvera Meuti was found the next morning, December 24, 2024, Christmas Eve, on the patio outside of the facility, near the area where she exited and near a door that locked behind her. She literally froze to death. Had they gone to look for her immediately, they likely would have found her immediately outside the facility and brought her in and she would not have died.

Amber Henderson claims that she thought that Alvera Meuti left with her family. That is not sufficient. The nursing home must verify where each resident is. Tragically, Amber Henderson apparently falsified her charting and indicating that she had done certain tasks that she was required to do with respect to Alvera Meuti even though Alvera Meuti was not in the nursing home. She lied and said that she completed those tasks when she obviously did not because Ms. Meuti was not in the facility.

False charting is another huge problem that we face in many of our cases. Nursing homes are required to have a sufficient number of adequately trained staff who are qualified to care for their residents. In this case, they clearly, did not and tragedy occurred.

If someone you love is in a nursing home and they cannot leave the nursing home safely on their own, then you must find out what the nursing home's plan is for keeping them safe. You should ask how the doors are secured. You should ask about all the facilities in the area of the nursing home where your loved one is going to reside.

Are the doors locked? Will they use a wanderguard with your loved one, which will alert them if your loved one leaves the unit where they are supposed to be? How will they monitor your loved one? How will they keep him or her safe? This case is a tragic example of what happens when a nursing home does not follow the laws, does not provide their residents with adequate supervision, and does not provide them with a safe environment.

Ohio Nursing Home Falls Often Result in Life Changing Consequences for Seniors

Every 11 seconds, an older person in the United States is treated in an emergency room for fall-related injuries.

When an adult falls, it often results in life changing consequences. Falls can lead to extending nursing home stays, permanent disability and even death.

The good news is that many falls can be prevented. The risk factor that is most likely to predict a future fall is a previous fall.

Falls can be caused by any number of things. Falls can be caused by vision problems. Falls can be caused by tripping on objects. Falls can be caused by weakness. Falls can be caused when an elderly person is knocked down by somebody else.

At The Dickson Firm, falls are one of the most common types of cases that handled by our Elder Law Attorneys. Our injury lawyers have handled hundreds of cases involving falls in nursing homes throughout the State of Ohio.

Nursing homes in Ohio have a duty, pursuant to the Ohio Nursing Home Residents Bill of Rights, which is a state law in Ohio, to provide their residents with a safe environment. This includes an environment where they address the needs of their residents who are at risk for falling. Many nursing home residents are at risk for falling.

When a resident is admitted to a nursing home, the nursing home is obligated to perform a comprehensive assessment of that resident to determine all of their needs. One of the things that they have to determine is if that person is at risk for falls. Some nursing home residents can walk safely on their own. They can get up and go to the bathroom on their own. They can walk to the dining room and have a meal on their own. They may need to be kept in the nursing home so they don't wander outside of the nursing home and get injured because they have dementia or some other challenge. But they are able to move about safely. Other nursing home residents are not able to get up on their own. They need assistance to get out of bed. However, there are a number of residents in the middle, who are strong enough to get up on their own, but not strong enough to walk safely on their own. They need supervision, and they need assistance.

As Ohio Nursing Home Lawyers we need to be familiar with the many state and federal laws and regulations that apply to the care of nursing home residents in a nursing home. Pursuant to the Code of Federal Regulations, which is a set of federal regulations that apply to all nursing homes in the United States, nursing homes are obligated to provide their residents with adequate supervision to prevent accidents. Nursing homes are also obligated to keep the resident environment as free of action hazards as is possible.

So, how do nursing homes provide their residents with adequate supervision?

Many residents use alarms. There are pressure pads that can go beneath a resident's chair or their bed so if the resident begins to get up, it sounds an alarm, and the staff can then attend to the resident and make sure that they are not getting up unattended. There are string alarms whereby a clip is placed on the resident's clothing, and the string goes to a magnet at the base of the alarm. If the resident begins to get up and pulls the magnet off its base, an alarm sounds, and the staff at the nursing home can attend to the resident. Nursing homes can make use of cameras in the rooms. They can make use of motion detectors.

Some nursing homes tell families who are admitting a loved one into their nursing home that fall alarms are restraints. This is completely untrue. While there may be some residents who might be startled by the sound of an alarm, alarms are not restraints. Further, there are many alarms that don't make an audible sound. There are alarms that set off a pager that a nurse can wear on her person. There are alarms that illuminate a light over the door of the resident's room. There are even alarms that could be programmed with the voice of one of the resident's loved ones telling that resident to sit down and call for help. There are many ways to implement alarms effectively without disturbing the residents.

At The Dickson Firm, it is our belief that many nursing homes have stopped using alarms because the use of alarms makes it easier to prove a nursing home case when somebody has fallen and suffered injury. If the resident was supposed to have an alarm and they did not have an alarm in place when they fall, then the nursing home would be liable for that fall. If the alarm does go off and the staff does not respond promptly, that can also be used against the nursing home in a lawsuit.

The fact remains that nursing homes are obligated to provide their residents with adequate supervision to prevent accidents. If you are admitting someone who you love into a nursing home and they are at risk for falls, you need to have a detailed discussion with the staff at the nursing home about what their plan is to keep your loved one safe.

What is their plan to give them adequate supervision? If they don't use alarms, how do they provide their residents with adequate supervision. We here at The Dickson Firm have never been provided with a reasonable response to that question.

We have never seen a strategy where a nursing home is actually able to provide adequate supervision to their residents without the use of alarms. Imagine a nursing home at 3:00 in the morning. There are 30 residents on one wing. There is one nurse and two aides on duty on that wing. How could those three people possibly know whether any of their 30 residents are up walking around their room? Imagine two of the aids are in one resident's room transferring that person to their wheelchair and ultimately to the commode using a Hoyer lift so that person can be toileted. Imagine the nurse is tending to a second resident. That leaves 28 residents unattended. It is simply not possible for the staff at a nursing home to have eyes on every single resident 24 hours a day. They need to come up with a system for adequate supervision. This system routinely involves some technology that enables the staff to keep an eye on the residents.

If your loved one is at risk for falls and the nursing home does not have an adequate strategy to prevent falls, do not leave your loved one in that nursing home. At The Dickson Firm our experienced nursing home lawyers have handled many cases where a person has suffered a fatal fall within hours of being admitted to the nursing home. We have handled many cases where the family member has told us that they specifically told the staff that their loved one was a fall risk and yet the nursing home did not put any interventions in place and the resident fell and suffered a serious injury.

In many cases, the resident is a new resident in the nursing home because they have suffered a fall. We see many cases where somebody suffers a fall at home, suffers an injury, goes to the hospital for treatment, often surgery, and then is sent to the nursing home for rehabilitation. As indicated above, the best indicator that somebody is a fall risk is if they have had a prior fall. The nursing home is obligated to provide each of their residents with an adequate strategy to prevent falls. If your loved one is at risk for falling out of bed, their bed should be placed in the lowest position. They can even place the mattress directly on the floor. And there should be a mat next to the bed.

Falls can be extremely harmful for elderly people. Falls can lead to fractures which can lead to immobility. Immobility can lead to pneumonia. Immobility can lead to bed sores. Falls themselves can be fatal. We have handled many, many cases where nursing home residents have fallen and either suffered a head injury which is ultimately fatal or even an orthopedic injury which is ultimately fatal. An incredibly high number of elderly people who suffer falls do not survive a year after that fall. As a result, fall prevention has to be a significant priority for any nursing home that cares about providing good care.

If someone you love has suffered an injury 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.