56 minutes ago
4
Inset: William "Gene" Ray (Barnes Trial Group). Background: The Waverly Assisted Living and Memory Care successful Florida (Google Maps).
A Navy seasoned with dementia wandered distant from his country astatine a Florida nursing location and into the walk-in freezer successful the kitchen, wherever helium spent the adjacent 4 hours aft helium became trapped, a suit said.
It wasn't until 83-year-old William "Gene" Ray's household noticed him missing from his country connected a Ring camera astatine The Waverly Assisted Living and Memory Care installation and alerted unit that the nursing location realized helium had escaped, the lawsuit filed successful May successful Pasco County alleges. Staff searched the installation and located him successful the freezer. He was shivering and hardly conscious.
He was rushed to the hospital, wherever helium died of hypothermia. His assemblage somesthesia was conscionable 66 degrees.
Ray's household filed a wrongful decease and negligence lawsuit, claiming the installation failed to adequately show and support the erstwhile Navy main petty officer.
"Had the installation been decently staffed and/or had on-duty unit been alert and reasonably diligent, an unattended and roaming Mr. Ray would person been encountered and escorted backmost to his country thereby preventing his death," the suit stated. "Had the room doors been secured and locked portion ALF room employees were disconnected duty, Mr. Ray would not person frozen to decease connected Sept. 26, 2025."
In an interrogation with section ABC affiliate WFTS, Ray's girl Kristen Spencer described however she rushed to the installation aft seeing her begetter missing from his room. When she arrived, unit enactment her successful a league country arsenic they continued looking for her father.
"The manager came successful and said they recovered him, and past she said helium was successful the freezer," Spencer said. "And I said, what bash you mean he's successful the freezer? I couldn't adjacent judge the words that I was hearing. From determination it was conscionable unbearable."
Ray moved into the nursing location successful May 2025. From the outset, Ray was known to rotation disconnected from his country successful hunt of his woman of 55 years, who did not unrecorded astatine the facility, per the lawsuit. He would locomotion into different residents' rooms and would mumble "incoherently." One time, unit recovered him walking outside.
As the months went on, helium continued to grounds confusion, astatine 1 constituent reasoning that the twelvemonth was 2010.
On the time of Ray's death, surveillance camera footage showed him leaving his country astir 12:30 a.m. For the adjacent 4 hours, helium walked astir the nursing location unnoticed by staff. He walked successful and retired of the room and freezer respective times during that period. At astir 4:30 a.m., helium walked into the freezer and the doorway unopen down him, locking him inside, the suit said.
His household called the nursing location soon aft 7 a.m. to alert unit of his disappearance. They recovered Ray successful the freezer astir an hr later.
The Agency for Healthcare Administration issued a captious study connected The Waverly, saying it had lone 1 idiosyncratic watching 48 residents astatine the installation connected the nighttime of Ray's death, WFTS reported.
"There were systemic failures successful staffing that we judge straight led to Mr. Ray's death," Ray's household lawyer Steve Barnes told the TV station.
In a connection to WFTS, the assisted surviving installation defended its actions related to Ray's death.
"The Waverly acknowledges that a suit has been filed by Mr. Ray's household concerning his residency astatine the assemblage and the circumstances surrounding his passing. While the Waverly cannot remark successful item connected pending litigation, it powerfully disputes the allegations asserted against it and intends to vigorously support itself done the ineligible process," the connection said.
English (US) ·