Resident Dies At Brownfield Nursing Home After Wandering From Room

A nursing home resident was found dead outside of a Texas adult care facility hours after he wandered from his room.

Shockingly, this is the third such wandering incident in less than a year at the nursing home – and one of over a dozen incidents involving injury, abuse, harassment, and neglect since 2010.
According to local news sources, 71-year-old Willie Joe Byers wandered out of his room and out of the Tumbleweed Care Center in the early hours of the morning last Thursday. The man, who suffered from dementia, was not reported missing or found until four hours later, when a nursing home staff member found his limp body outside. He was soon pronounced dead.
This is the third nursing home wandering and elopement incident to take place in the last six months at the Lubbock nursing home. Just days before, a resident wandered away from the home and was found over 100 miles away by the time that staffers noticed he was gone. In another incident, an elderly man wandered from the nursing home grounds and attempted to rob a nearby dollar store.
The Texas Department of Aging and Disability Services has found ten violations at the nursing home just in 2010, including serious problems such as harassment, abuse, neglect, and other issues. For example, the nursing home was found to be hiring employees with a history of abuse or violence and to be failing to give nursing home residents safe and secure living areas.
It is unclear whether the nursing home did anything to prevent wandering injuries and deaths after the first two incidents occurred.