The Ohio Department of Health has released their report into the Hilty Home resident who froze to death on January 7, 2018.
According to the report, 76-year-old Phyllis Campbell was outside nearly 8 hours, in temperatures around negative 2 degrees, before she was discovered frozen to death in the courtyard of the Pandora facility. Campbell suffered from dementia and Alzheimer's and was prone to attempting to leave the facility.
The report states that Campbell got up shortly after she was put to bed around midnight, then she made her way to the dining room and left through a door to the courtyard, which had an alarm that only sounded for 90 seconds. She was wearing a device that was suppose to alert staff to her movement, but when tested it didn't always go off when it passed sensors. Staff didn't realize that she was missing, until around 7 the next morning when they began their search.
The Ohio Department of Health recommends medicaid and medicare deny payments and not approve any new residents to move into Hilty Home until they make changes to their procedures and monitoring of residents. Some measures to improve these procedures began after the incident.
