Nursing Home Worker Accused of Punching 93-Year-Old Resident
A nursing home worker in Wisconsin is accused of punching a 93-year-old resident in the head. A criminal complaint was filed when a police officer saw the resident and noticed a "baseball-sized" bruise on her head. After speaking with the resident, it was discovered that the abuse was a regular occurrence.
Nursing home worker Shawna Hardesty is charged with a felony count of intentional abuse of a nursing home patient for the alleged assault, which occurred on August 2. Hardesty was suspended without pay from the nursing home within an hour of the initial complaint and fired a week later after an internal investigation.
However, while the nursing home is trying to publicly demonstrate that it is being proactive in this issue, the facts of the case reveal that the abuse may have happened repeatedly and was only caught due to the intervention of someone who did not work for the nursing home.
A local police officer was at the nursing home on unspecified business when he noticed the bruise. The officer called in a social worker to speak to the resident. According to the social worker, the resident, who called the punches a "biff," said that, "every time she comes in this room, I get a biff." It is not clear how many times this happened, but it may not have stopped if not for the intervention of this police officer.
This case demonstrates the importance of detecting abuse. Nursing home administrators may overlook or cover up evidence of abuse and neglect, so nursing home visitors, including friends and family of residents and others such as this police officer, should always be on the lookout for abuse and report anything they see as suspicious to police and contact an attorney who can insist in the investigation.
