A nursing home resident at the Lutheran Home for the Aged in Arlington Heights, Illinois died in a local hospital after experiencing severe hemorrhaging and vomiting at the facility.
The resident was admitted to the facility from the hospital with diagnoses that included atrial fibrillation, peripheral vascular disease, dysphagia, and post surgical aortocoronary bypass. He was being fed with a feeding tube.
On the morning the resident died, he had developed a nosebleed at 5:30 AM. At 10:30 AM, he began vomiting. Lutheran Home for the Aged staff reported hearing “crackles” in his lung.
At 3:40 PM the man’s temperature was reported at 100.2. Finally, at 4:30 PM, the man began vomiting blood and fluids, and the physician was notified about the man’s declining condition. He was admitted to the hospital and died five days later. The cause of death was listed on the Death Certificate as “Aspiration Pneumonia.”
Establishing a nursing home wrongful death case is different from other wrongful death cases. Nursing homes have to follow the standard of care for each individual in the nursing home. Most nursing home residents have long standing medical conditions, and their condition needs to be properly treated for the duration of their stay.
Sadly, most nursing home neglect lawsuits are also wrongful death lawsuits. Surviving the kind of severe nursing home neglect that we often see is rare.
This death might have been avoided if the staff at the Lutheran Home for the Aged had notified the resident’s physician as soon as the symptoms began instead of waiting almost 12 hours before taking action.
If you have a loved one who has passed away in an Illinois nursing home, and you feel that their passing may have been a wrongful death, contact our Chicago nursing home lawyers for a free and confidential evaluation of your case.