› $580,975,000 verdict in personal injury case
Wes Bledsoe, the founder of the watchdog group A Perfect Cause, returns to Albert Lea, Minnesota, this week to meet again with families of victims allegedly abused during the widely publicized “attacks for thrills” incident at the Good Samaritan Society nursing home, according to the Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota Star Tribune. While in town, Bledsoe also will attend the arraignments of two of the nurses charged with in the crimes.
Joe Bilgen said the sexual abuse his father endured at the hands of Ohio nursing home night shift nurse John Riems was akin to child abuse because Riems victims had similar states of mind. The fiancé of another victim told the Associated Press that Riems was an, “ancient evil spirit of torment.”
Linda Shaw was supposed to be overseeing 16 residents at Personal Care II assisted living facility in Bradenton, Fla., last summer. But just minutes after she reported for her 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. shift, she walked out the door and never returned, leaving the residents without a caregiver, according to the Bradenton Herald.
Thelma Bryant, a 94-year-old woman at Kane Glen Hazel nursing home in Pittsburgh, Pa., was hit in the head, struck in the chest with an elbow, had oranges thrown at her, had her feet stomped, and was cussed at by center employees who were charged with providing her care, according to MSNBC.
Jan Reshetar stood up at a press conference last week and said she thought her mother-in-law’s agitation was caused by her Alzheimer’s disease. She was mortified to learn that her 84-year-old family member was actually trying desperately to communicate through her cognitively impaired state, trying to tell her family about the humiliating abuse and sexual taunting she was subjected to for months as a resident of the Good Samaritan Society nursing home in Albert Lea, Minn.
An Office of Health Facility Complaints Investigative Report by the Minnesota Department of Public Health dated May 7, 2008, revealed that three of the residents who were abused by employees at the Good Samaritan Society nursing home in Albert Lea, Minn., in the much-publicized “abuse-for-thrills” case are deceased.
The “attacks-for-thrills” case where four nursing home aides were accused of abusing cognitively impaired residents at Good Samaritan Society in Albert Lea, Minn., for entertainment, has captured the attention of a national watchdog group, according to the Star Tribune.
Two of the Minnesota nursing home aides charged in the “attacks for thrills” on vulnerable patients at Good Samaritan Society in Albert Lea are being charged as adults, according to Fox News. The remaining four suspects are charged with failing to report the incidents and will be tried as juveniles.
Rita Kittower had no choice but to put her husband of nearly 50 years into an assisted living facility after he suffered a major stroke that diminished his memory and left him unable to care for himself. Mrs. Kittower paid $75,000 a year to the upscale Silverado Senior Living facility in Calabasas, Calif., to provide her husband Elmore with the best possible care, according to the Los Angeles Times.
When he died, staff told her Mr. Kittower died peacefully in his sleep.
But when Mrs. Kittower received a call the day after burying her husband from an employee at Silverado, she was devastated. The caller said that shortly before Kittower died she saw a fellow employee punch Kittower’s husband’s face and wrap a towel around his head as if to suffocate him.
When neglect or abuse is suspected against an Oklahoma nursing home resident, state statutes say the incident should be reported to the Department of Human Services or the Sheriff’s department.
Jack Crow believes the first call should be to the police.
