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Thursday's Final Word
Two Colorado nursing home employees have been arrested on charges of abusing an at-risk adult at the facility.
Patience Jackson, 33, was arrested on Wednesday, and Zainab Namale turned herself in on Thursday. They have been charged with criminal negligence, crimes against an at risk person and complicity, according to KUSA.
An investigator was called in on May 9 after a 92-year-old woman who suffers from dementia was brought to Sky Ridge Medical Center from Orchard Park Health Care Center with two broken bones in her lower leg.
Hospital staff said that the injuries were inconsistent with the report from Orchad Park on the injury, which said that the woman was “found sitting in her wheelchair, screaming for help in terrible pain, no on had seen her fall and they didn’t know what happened,” an affidavit said.
Another nurse said that she believed the injury may have happened because the patient tended to “plant her feet” when she was being moved from her wheelchair to her bed, causing a twisting motion.
But hospital employees said the injuries were not caused by a any twisting motion. The surgeon who repaired the damage said the two breaks were clean breaks which could not have happened in that manner.
Jackson and Namale told investigators that the woman was sitting in the wheelchair when the injuries happend. They said that she was holding the bed’s remote and moved it onto her legs, causing the break. But hospital staff said that wasn’t possible.
Investigators determined that Jackson, a certified nursing assistant, and Namale, a licensed practical nurse, weren’t likely telling the truth and charged them.
