Elder Abuse

The details coming out of North Charleston are horrifying, but sadly familiar to anyone who works in elder neglect. Deputies found 76-year-old Dianne Clark dead in a home so contaminated with filth, insects, and human waste that first responders had to put on protective gear just to enter. She was wearing a soiled adult diaper. She had an untreated stage-4 pressure ulcer so deep it exposed her spine — an injury that never appears overnight and only reaches that level when a dependent adult is left without even the most basic human care. The autopsy confirmed what the scene already showed: she died from a catastrophic infection that was entirely preventable.

Her caregivers — her own son and his partner — are now charged with neglect of a vulnerable adult resulting in death. But the criminal charges only tell part of the story. What happened to Ms. Clark wasn’t an accident or a sudden medical crisis. It was the predictable outcome of prolonged abandonment: no hygiene, no wound care, no medication continuity, no monitoring, and no attempt to keep her environment sanitary. Pressure injuries advance when a person is left in the same position for hours or days at a time. Infections take hold when open wounds are contaminated with fecal matter. This level of deterioration reflects not a moment of negligence but a sustained, systemic collapse of care.

And while this tragedy occurred in a private home, the pattern mirrors what we see again and again in understaffed nursing facilities — people left sitting in their own waste, wounds going unnoticed, homes or rooms allowed to fall into dangerous, unsanitary conditions because the caregivers responsible simply weren’t providing the care required. Whether neglect happens behind the doors of a facility or behind the doors of a house, the outcome is the same: the vulnerable suffer in silence, and by the time anyone notices, it is too late.

Ms. Clark deserved dignity, safety, and the most basic protections from harm. Instead, she spent her final days in conditions no human being should endure. Her death should stand as a stark reminder that elder neglect is not subtle. It is not invisible. It leaves unmistakable signs — and it demands accountability wherever it occurs.