Report: North Carolina nursing home put residents in jeopardy during storm

THOMASVILLE, N.C. — A North Carolina nursing home put its residents in “immediate jeopardy” when it failed to enact an emergency plan, leaving just three people to take care of 98 residents during a January storm, according to a state report released Monday.

The News & Observer account says the report from the state Department of Health and Human Services said police arrived at Pine Ridge Health & Rehabilitation Center on the night of Jan. 16 after receiving a 911 call from a resident who complained about not seeing staff members for a “long period of time.” Police found two residents dead and two others in critical condition inside the nursing home.

The report describes a chaotic scene at the nursing home, located in Thomasville, about 70 miles (110 kilometers) northeast of Charlotte. It says residents were without food and needed medications, and that patients were wandering behind the nursing station in the dementia unit and putting unidentified things in their mouth. A police officer said the one nurse on duty had been working for 16 hours and “almost broke down into tears.”

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