Ohio family files lawsuit against nursing home after woman's pressure wound death

An Ohio woman’s family has filed a lawsuit against the nursing home she was treated at after she developed a pressure wound that became infected and ultimately killed her.

The nursing home is located in Oregon, a northwest Ohio city just outside of Toledo.

Lucy Garcia, 72, was admitted to Arbors at Oregon on Jan. 25, 2023 for long term residential care after having a stroke, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday afternoon in Lucas County. She died nearly a year-and-a-half later on July 2, 2024 due to a pressure ulcer that became infected, leading to sepsis.

The Lucas County Coroner performed an autopsy on Garcia and reviewed her medical records from St. Charles Medical Center and Arbors at Oregon. The coroner ruled her manner of death homicide, and an autopsy report obtained lists her death as the result of “caretaker neglect resulting in complications of a sacral pressure wound.” 

Matt Mooney, an attorney representing the Garcia family, filed the lawsuit on the family’s behalf and said the filing is “the first step towards bringing Lucy Garcia’s killers to justice.”

Read more: Ohio family says they plan to sue nursing home after matriarch's death ruled a homicide

Citing medical negligence and recklessness, the lawsuit blames the facility for Garcia’s death and calls for at least $25,000 in damages plus attorney’s fees and other expenses.

“We will stop at nothing to hold the Arbors and its corporate controllers accountable for creating a system of putting profits over people - a system that they knew caused horrific injuries and death to their residents like Lucy,” Mooney wrote in a statement to Paste BN on Friday.

Arbors at Oregon did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Garcia heavily reliant on caretakers at nursing home due to stroke

Garcia’s stroke had made her heavily reliant on the workers at Arbors at Oregon, her family alleged in the lawsuit. 

The stroke took a toll on her left side, primarily her left arm, and doctors were aware that she needed help getting in and out of bed, moving around in bed and getting to the bathroom. The facility told the Garcia family that staff would be able to care for their matriarch’s needs.

“Arbors at Oregon represented to Lucy’s family that they had sufficient numbers of well trained, qualified, and compassionate nursing staff to provide appropriate care to Lucy and all the other residents under their care,” the lawsuit read.

But employees there knew resident needs could not be met and other patients had suffered from injuries such as bedsores, infections, falls and in Garcia’s case, death, the lawsuit alleges.

According to the Garcia family’s lawsuit, the facility did not have enough staff members to properly care for residents, and the staff members that were there had not received the proper training, nor were they “compassionate to the needs and rights of the residents,” the lawsuit reads.

The lawsuit also alleges that the facility had been investigated for multiple health and safety violations and failed to let Garcia’s family know about the violations, including recent criminal neglect and abuse accusations against nursing staff that led to the death of one patient.

Patient needed help getting to the restroom so staff put her in diapers, lawsuit alleges

While Garcia needed help to do so, she could use the restroom, the lawsuit alleged. Rather than help her to the restroom, staff at Arbors at Oregon put her in adult diapers and told her staff would come and “clean her up” once she soiled herself.

She was often left in soiled diapers for extended periods of time, “exposing her skin to her own bodily waste – which resulted in breakdown of the skin on her buttocks,” the lawsuit read.  

The day after she was admitted to Arbors at Oregon, staff completed an assessment to determine the likeness of her developing pressure or bedsores. She scored a 13, meaning she was at a moderate risk for developing bedsores. 

To prevent the sores, Garcia needed to be turned and repositioned regularly in bed, but her family alleges Arbors at Oregon’s staff did not do this.

Staff first noted that Garcia developed a sore on March 5 this year. Just 8 days later, Arbors at Oregon noted that the “abrasion” had grown and a photo was taken, the lawsuit alleged.

The sore developed “in-house,” according to the lawsuit. Staff referred to the sore as an “abrasion.” When skilled nursing facilities have patients who develop bedsores, they must report the bedsores to the Centers for Medicare, which may negatively impact the facility’s quality measures rating, the lawsuit read.

According to the Garcia family’s lawsuit, someone at Arbors at Oregon told staff to log bed sores as different types of wounds so the facility’s quality measures score would not be impacted. The family argued that this allowed the facility to dupe members of the public into believing their loved ones would be properly cared for at the facility.

By March 25, Arbors at Oregon’s nursing staff had noted that the sore was “resolved” despite it still being visible on her backside, the lawsuit read. There were also discrepancies in her file regarding when the wound began to develop.

According to the lawsuit, the facility did not document the wound as a pressure wound until June 13, just over 3 months after it first developed. Her family still hadn’t been told about the pressure wound.

Garcia's family finds out she’s near death more than 3 months after pressure wound developed

On June 19, Arbors at Oregon contacted the Garcia family and told them Garcia was nearing the end of her life, and said she needed to be put in hospice care. Her family came to visit and found her barely responsive, their lawyer wrote in the lawsuit.

Garcia’s sons told facility staff that Garcia was recently feeling well enough to go to church. They didn’t understand how things could deteriorate so quickly, according to the lawsuit. Facility staff did not tell the family what happened, nor did they tell her about the wound, the document read.

Garcia’s other family members in her room noticed an odor coming from her, then turned her over and saw a loose bandage on her backside that was beginning to peel back. There, they saw her bedsore, which had pus coming from it, the lawsuit read.

Family members pushed for her to go to the hospital but the facility was hesitant. Eventually, Arbors at Oregon called an ambulance and Garcia was taken to the hospital. Doctors removed the bandages on her backside and found that she had a Stage 4 bedsore. 

“All the tissue on her backside down to her bone had died off, including muscle,” the lawsuit read. “The open bedsore was exposed to Lucy’s own feces and urine from Arbors at Oregon leaving her in soiled adult diapers, and the wound was infected with bacteria causing sepsis – a systemic infection of Lucy’s body.”

The wound was so deep that bones in Garcia’s back were exposed, the lawsuit read. Doctors treated her with IV antibiotics and cleaned the wound. However, she died on July 2.

The Garcia family and their lawyer argued in the lawsuit that she died “as a direct and proximate result of the negligence/recklessness” the nursing home showed when caring for her.

Mooney, the family’s lawyer, previously told Paste BN that Garcia had a large family. She was a single mother, raised four boys and was also a “motherly figure to all the kids in the neighborhood.”

She was known to let people stay at her house for the night if they needed it, he said.

“Her family really viewed her as the center of their family unit, and she was included in just about every single one of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren's births,” Mooney told Paste BN in September. 

She leaves behind four sons, 17 grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren. 

This story has been updated to clarify the amount the family is requesting in damages.

Saleen Martin is a reporter on Paste BN's NOW team. She is from Norfolk, Virginia – the 757. Follow her on Twitter at @SaleenMartin or email her at sdmartin@usatoday.com.