Spalding care home investigated after window fall death
Care home bosses are facing investigation after an elderly woman fell out of a window and died at Spalding.
Country Court Care Home Group is due to appear before Spalding magistrates tomorrow facing charges relating to the death of 74-year-old Florence O'Connor.
Mrs O'Connor died on June 24 last year after falling from a first floor window at St John's Care Home in Hawthorn Bank.
On Friday an inquest into Mrs O'Connor's death heard that the fall was as a result of window restrictors being disconnected.
She died in Boston's Pilgrim Hospital after suffering chest and spinal injuries including several broken bones and a severed spinal column in the fall.
At the inquest coroner Dr Murray Spittal recorded a verdict of accidental death.
The court heard that dementia-sufferer Mrs O'Connor had only been at the home for three weeks before the accident.
Her bedroom was on the first floor and on that day there were about 19 residents upstairs with three members of staff looking after them.
At about 8.30am the residents had gone to the dining room for breakfast but Mrs O'Connor was wandering around, which was not unusual.
Giving evidence cleaner June Nottingham said came out of the bathroom and caught sight of Mrs O'Connor sitting on the lounge window sill with the window open.
She said: "I started walking slowly towards her and she seemed to do a backflip straight out of the window."
Mrs Nottingham told the court that Mrs O'Connor was always trying to open the windows or throwing things out of them.
Giving evidence Jason Phillips, project development manager for Country Court Care at the time, said the lounge from which Mrs O'Connor fell had been decorated shortly before the accident but he was not aware of the window restrictors being disconnected during the work.
Mechanical engineering specialist Paul Stanworth, who tested the restrictors following the accident confirmed to the court that they were in good condition.
He explained that the restrictors hook over a locking pin which is then turned using a spanner to lock them in place.
Giving evidence handyman David Luya told the court the restrictors were checked at least once a week but was unable to produce any physical evidence to prove this.
He said: "The window in question would have been checked on the Monday night before the accident on Tuesday.
"I don't work weekends so on Monday I check everything.
"I have no idea how the window restrictors became undone."
Summing up Dr Spittal said: "The key issue is, why were both window restrictors disconnected?
"The windows were prone to tampering by residents and it is possible, just, that a resident may have disconnected them but they could not have then put the pins back into a locked position.
"It seems likely that a member of staff disconnected them although I have been unable to ascertain who and when.
"Also the regularity of the checks on the windows is not clear to me.
"These clearly facilitated Mrs O'Connor's fall."
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Weather for Spalding
Friday 25 May 2012
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