Horror on Long Island

The New York Post reported  Janet Balducci was pronounced dead at Water’s Edge Rehabilitation & Nursing Center in Port Jefferson, Long Island, on February 4th, 2022. The nurse sent her off in a body bag to be embalmed. However, when the 82-year-old woman arrived at Casimir Funeral Home in Miller Place, New York, they discovered she was “still breathing and had a pulse,” Balducci family lawyer Peter DeNoto said.

Following this, the funeral home alerted emergency services, and Balducci was transported to the hospital, where she “survived for another day but ultimately passed.” Both of Balducci’s sons, Robert and Joseph Balducci, are suing the nursing home and the funeral home for both negligence and wrongful death.

They hope that the lawsuit will bring answers as to how this could have happened. Questions arise, such as, “Did the nurse follow the criteria for determining whether somebody is dead, and did a doctor confirm what the nurse found?”

The lawyer states, “There really is no excuse for putting a live person in a body bag and sending them to a facility for embalming,” DeNoto, the family’s lawyer, states that this case highlights a larger issue within the nursing home sector regarding elderly neglect at long-term care facilities, even when their loved ones are heavily involved. The lawyer said, “There was nobody there advocating for her as an elderly person,” and “She was definitely at the end stages of her life, unfortunately. That happens to all of us. But here, it seems it was too easy to say she is no longer alive. Let’s send her to a facility.”

Balducci was previously living independently before a fall at her home on August 1st, 2022, which led her to be hospitalized before being placed at Water’s Edge on September 6th, 2022. According to Robert and Josephs’s suit, the facility “prematurely declaring” Balducci dead caused “genuine mental and/or emotional distress”.

Both had to grapple with the guilt of placing their mother in a facility where she was left neglected and under a low care level, and both were left to live knowing how her final days were. DeNoto said, “It really is a sad case” and “The end game is to send a message that you have to take your job seriously, and you have to treat human beings with dignity and respect.”

The case was referred to the New York State Attorney General’s Office and the Suffolk County police on the day of Balducci’s death. The sons have yet to receive any information regarding the status of the two probes.