Randy Ellis
12/18/2000
It took two shocking deaths and a change in leadership at the state Health Department to close Choctaw Living Center.
Six years of mentally incapacitated residents being kicked, slapped, beaten, choked, burned and sexually assaulted were previously not deemed sufficient.
It made headlines in January when one of the center's residents died in her room and her body was not discovered for six days.
Eight months later, a severely retarded resident was charged with choking another resident to death with a belt. The accused man had been encouraged to commit violent acts against the victim by employees who offered him sodas to start fights and urged him to try out wrestling holds, an investigation revealed.
Acting Health Department Director Jerry Regier, who had been on the job only four months, ordered the center closed.
Were the two deaths tragedies that could have been foreseen?
A review of court files and newspaper archives reveals that for six years Choctaw Living Center residents were subjected to horrific abuses at the hands of caretakers and other residents.
The Health Department's former top administrators always found excuses to keep the center operating.
- They kept it open in 1994 after five employees were charged with 15 separate counts of aggravated assault and battery against mentally retarded residents.
One employee was charged with twice flipping lighted cigarettes into a resident's mouth.
A blind patient was beaten with a coat hanger. Another patient was knocked to the floor a few times. Other patients were punched in the chest, face and jaw. Some were kicked in the back and stomach.
All five employees were convicted or pleaded guilty.
- They kept it open in 1995 and 1996 when at least six more employees were charged with assault and battery on residents.
- They kept it open in 1997 after Health Department surveyors found several instances of clients sexually assaulting each other with employees taking no action to intervene.
Surveyors also reported feces smeared on one bathroom wall, and $500 was missing from a resident's account. They said a resident went missing from the home more than 30 times over a period of years; another resident once was found sitting in the middle of a heavily traveled highway after wandering away.
- And they kept it open in 1998 after the center was fined $10,000 for having the teeth of 11 mentally disabled adults pulled without proper proof of consent.
A civil lawsuit filed by a resident's guardian claims the teeth were pulled to reduce problems with biting, although the dentist involved argued they were removed because of periodontal disease.
That same year, a caretaker repeatedly rammed his fingers into a resident's trachea opening until the opening started to bleed. Another caretaker punched a resident in the back of his head. Both pleaded guilty.
"The things that go on out there, while they are not excusable, they are somewhat tolerable because of the alternative," then-Deputy Health Commissioner Brent VanMeter said after the body of the resident who had been dead for six days was discovered. "What are you going to do with these people if you don't keep them there and hope that that facility is doing the best that it can?"
VanMeter was convicted in October of soliciting a bribe from the owner of another nursing home.
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