Left to Decay

“Nobody should have to see that. It didn’t even look like a person because he had been there for so long,”

–Angela Boorn, upon finding her uncle having been dead for four days.

People Magazine reported on the tragic case of Gerald McClellan. The 75-year-old moved into the LifeStream at Sun City senior living this past January. According to his niece, LifeStream’s policy is to check on residents every day. The residents must press a button by 10 a.m. every day to signal they’re alright, or a staff member is expected to check on the resident.

However, the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Department confirmed that Boorn likely died three to four days before emergency services were called by the niece.

Boorn stated that she had promised her uncle Gerald’s late wife that she could take care of him shortly before she passed away. She chose LifeStream to help care for him specifically because she felt reassured that their regular check-ups would be enough to look out for him. LifeStream, however, let four days of silence pass without any attempt to check on the resident. Boorn was then forced to discover the man she described as a second father, “like a skeleton in a chair,” as she said. “The face, the eyes were hollowed out.”

LifeStream at Sun City agreed to do one simple job, once a day, and could not properly execute this simple check-up. Mistakes made in long-term care facilities are not small mistakes—because of this four-day-long slipup, McClellan was denied dignity and potentially life-saving care, while his niece will have to retain a traumatic image of her neglected loved one’s decomposing body.