Chicago Nursing Home Neglect: Former Nurse’s Aide Pleads in Death of 89-Year-Old Woman Who Froze after Wandering from Arbor of Itasca
Heidi Leon, a former nursing assisted, has plead guilty to obstruction of justice and criminal neglect in the Itasca, Illinois nursing home negligence-related death of patient Sarah Wentworth. The 89-year-old resident died last winter when she froze to death after she wandered from the Arbor of Itasca, a suburban Chicago nursing home, in near zero temperature.
Leon neglected to check the door alarm when it went off at around 2am on February 5. This allowed Wentworth, who was barefoot, to leave the Itasca nursing home undetected. According to autopsy results, the elderly resident’s cause of death was hypothermia.
Leon is accused of not only failing to check the door after the alarm went off but of deactivating the signal and returning to the television show that she was watching.
It wasn’t until three hours later, conducting a bed check, that the former nursing home aid discovered that Wentworth was no longer in the building. The elderly patient's body was later found in the courtyard.
The elderly patient, who was suffering from dementia, had fallen, injuring her leg and chin. DuPage County prosecutors say it appears that she tried to crawl back to the nursing home.
On Monday, Leon apologized to Wentworth’s relatives in the Wheaton courtroom. Per her plea deal, Leon received credit for the six months she has spent in jail since she was arrested and is on probation for 30 months. She could have ended up serving a five-year prison sentence.
A police probe determined that nursing workers tried to conceal the way the woman died by putting her back in her room and changing the clothes that she had been wearing when she wandered away from the nursing home.
Last February, Wentworth’s daughters sued The Arbor of Itasca for Chicago nursing home negligence resulting in their mother’s wrongful death.
Nurse's aide guilty in elderly woman's death, Chicago Sun-Times, August 31, 2009
Family sues Itasca nursing home after woman dies, Chicago Tribune, February 11, 2009
Related Web Resources:
Ways to prevent dementia patients from wandering, The Seattle Times, June 4, 2009
The National Institute for Elopement Prevention and Resolution
