Maryland Nursing Home Lawyer Blog
If you placed a parent or grandparent in a Maryland nursing home, you trust that the doors are watched and the staff is paying attention. Here is what to know if that trust was broken.
Most families never hear the word “elopement” used in a nursing home until something terrible has already happened. In long-term care, the word does not mean running off to marry. It means a resident has left the facility unsupervised — out a door that should have been secured, past staff who should have been watching — and into a world that a frail or confused person is not equipped to navigate alone.
The stakes became impossible to ignore this year when a jury reached a $110 million verdict in a case involving a dementia patient who wandered outside a facility and was found dead from exposure. A number that large is not really about the dollars. It is a community’s judgment about how preventable the death was, and how badly the people responsible for that resident’s safety failed.
Summer raises the stakes in a way you should be aware of right now. When an elderly resident with dementia leaves a facility on a hot day, the clock starts immediately. Older bodies regulate temperature less effectively, and a wandering resident may not recognize thirst, heat distress, or the need to find shade. What might be a frightening but survivable few hours for a younger adult can become a medical emergency for your loved one in a fraction of that time.