993 Nursing Home Resident Elopements Reported In Florida From 2017 To 2021: A recent investigative report found that “Between 2017 and 2021, there were 993 instances of residents of Florida nursing homes exiting their facility without proper authorization or supervision, according to Florida Agency of Health Care Administration (AHCA) records. On average, that’s almost four “elopements” — as they’re referred to in the medical community — each week.”
“Florida nursing homes care for roughly 71,000 residents at any given time, according to the Florida Health Care Association, making elopements relatively rare. But they can be extremely dangerous for people living with dementia,”
Sample Florida Nursing Home Elopement Reports
A resident eloped almost a mile from the facility through a door to the front courtyard, which led to the front parking lot. CMS surveyors report that she got lost and could’ve fallen, drowned or been struck by a car. The resident was found after nearly three hours. And in response, the nursing home placed a wanderguard on her and increased supervision. Nevertheless, the resident managed to elope twice more on each of the next two days.
A resident with dementia, a history of falls and an abnormal gait eloped from the facility grounds on 04/20/19. At 7:30 PM, the Assistant Director of Nursing drove to the local gas station, which was two miles away, and the resident was found sitting in her wheel chair with her Wanderguard in her hand. The resident was found by a local citizen on the street and was brought to the gas station for safety. The police arrived at the gas station and the resident was wheeled back to the facility with no apparent injury.
A resident with continuous success at exiting the facility was able to elope on 05/22/2019. He was found at a recreation center parking lot, approximately two and a half miles from the facility, and returned by the Admissions Director. He was able to exit the facility through the use of a small plastic tool, but the resident would not explain how he used the tool to elope.
A resident, who had just exhibited exit-seeking behavior 10 hours before, eloped through a subacute unit door, which set off an alarm. Seven minutes later, staff found the resident uninjured walking outside in the back of the facility.
Diagnosed with a brain disorder that can cause an altered mental status and cognitive communication deficit, a resident exited the facility through the South Wing after-hours doors unsupervised on 06/23/2019. The resident walked through a broken, uneven sidewalk adjacent to a side street and along the sloping sidewalk of a heavily-trafficked 4 lane highway. Resident #1 was observed on the sidewalk by the facility’s Director of Nursing (DON) as she drove out of the facility’s parking lot. The resident’s whereabouts were unknown to the facility until the DON returned the resident to the unit.
Less than 24 hours after admission, a cognitively impaired resident exited the facility through the therapy entrance door unsupervised on 07/07/2019. He walked through the facility’s parking lot, along the facility’s driveway down a steep decline to the sidewalk. He then walked along the sidewalk adjacent to a busy 4-lane highway which had continuous heavy traffic flow in both directions. The resident was spotted by his granddaughter who was driving by. The resident’s whereabouts were unknown to the facility until they were notified by the family approximately 15 minutes after the resident exited the facility.
A resident with multiple diagnoses, including dementia and a psychotic disorder, who also had a history of elopement, eloped through the Memory Care unit’s open side door into the facility’s courtyard and climbed over a 6-foot gate. The facility was unaware of resident #1’s whereabouts until staff members located him lying in the grass on the east side of facility, over 380 feet away from his room. He had navigated over and around hazards such as raised tree roots and concrete drainage structures until he slipped and fell. He had abrasions on his knees and forearms when he was found.
Despite not being coded for elopement risk, a resident that displayed exit seeking behavior left the facility around 4:00 pm on 09/09/2019 with authorization. He was found by a police officer and brought back to the facility. When he was assessed, he was noted to have a temperature of 104.5, disoriented with redness in his face, and sent to the hospital.
A resident with significant cognitive impairment managed to elope through the front door. He was dressed in casual attire, which allowed him to exit the facility, as the receptionist mistook him for a visitor. The elopement evaluation inaccurately showed the resident was not cognitively impaired did not have poor decision-making skills, had not demonstrated exit-seeking behavior, did not wander oblivious to safety needs, had no history of elopement or ability to exit the facility. The facility was unaware of resident’s whereabouts until law enforcement located him approximately three hours later, wandering in a busy commercial district over six miles away.
Despite an exit alarm going off, a resident was unaccounted for between the hours of 2 am to 6 am. The door that the resident eloped through exited onto a main two-lane road, which had an active railroad track on the other side. The resident was found with his walker by law enforcement on the side of the road and subsequently taken by EMS to a local hospital emergency department. The resident complained of foot pain after walking on rocks and a distance between 11 to 15 miles.
A resident eloped through the main lobby, opening the door manually using a key control on the wall. Diagnosed with altered mental status, difficulty walking, muscle weakness, anxiety, paranoia, dementia and more condition(s) that are redacted, he went 0.19 miles down a sloping walkway and uneven sidewalks along a moderately trafficked two-lane road to a convenience store located on a very busy corner of two major thoroughfares. The temperature that day was 90 degrees Fahrenheit, which placed the resident at risk for dehydration and/or sun exposure. The resident was found by a Good Samaritan, who used the resident’s cell phone to contact his sister. The resident’s whereabouts were unknown to the facility staff until the resident’s daughter called them.
A 72-year-old man diagnosed with Alzheimer’s dementia eloped 3.5 miles away from the facility without the staff’s awareness. The resident eloped in a high-traffic area near highways 10 and 95, and the St. John’s River. He was found covered in blood and without pants in the front yard of a house that wasn’t his. Per the EMS report, he had been a victim of assault.
In December 2015, 75-year-old Coleman Felts eloped from Golden Glades Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Miami and was found dead several hundred yards away, face down and fully clothed in the shallow water of a lake, eighteen hours after the nursing home’s staff realized he was missing.
On August 6, 2022, a 67-year-old Kentucky nursing home resident was found deceased in the woods after eloping from a nursing home nearly a week earlier.
If you or a loved one suffered injuries (or worse) involving elopement from a nursing home in Florida or in another U.S. state, you should promptly find a nursing home claim lawyer in Florida or in your state who may investigate your nursing home elopement claim for you and file a nursing home elopement claim on your behalf or behalf of your loved one, if appropriate.
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