A woman who lived what her family called the “American dream” died in a manner that is only fitting of the worst nightmares, according to a recent lawsuit. An autopsy reported indicated that the 93-year-old passed away in a Georgia nursing home in 2015 as the result of “septicemia due to crusted scabies.” For those who may be unfamiliar, scabies is a contagious infestation of the skin caused by burrowing, parasitic mites—a wholly unacceptable condition for a patient contract, let alone die of, while under the care of a nursing home.
A Storied Life and Tragic Death
The woman was a small-town girl from North Carolina who moved to Virginia during World War II to work in a naval yard in Norfolk. She went on to do some modeling in New York City and later worked for a television station in Chicago. As the woman got older, she began to show symptoms of dementia, and her daughter moved her into a nursing home in LaFayette, Georgia in 2010.
Records obtained from the Georgia Department of Public Health show that officials received reports of scabies outbreaks at the LaFayette facility in 2013 and prior to her death in 2015. The nursing home’s own records show additional scabies cases in 2014 as well, according to court documents.
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