A former Somerset Court of Cherryville worker shared concerns about a hospice patient forced to sleep on the floor, call bell problems, and an unexpected death.
CHERRYVILLE, N.C. — Somerset Court of Cherryville promises the “highest levels of respect, care and attention,” but a WCNC Charlotte investigation found the Gaston County assisted living facility may have failed to live up to that promise for some of its residents.
“He would just holler”
Stacy Reeves said a picture she took shows a 74-year-old hospice patient’s sleeping conditions just days before his death. In the photo, the man is partially on a mattress and partially on the ground in between a dresser and the base of his bed.
“He would say, ‘Get me up. Get me up,” Reeves said. “He would just holler. I couldn’t leave him on the floor, so I took it upon myself to pick the mattress up (and) helped him into the wheelchair.”
Reeves fought back tears as she expressed her heartbreak that she wasn’t by the man’s side when he passed away later that month.
“I do feel bad, because I bonded with him,” the former Somerset Court of Cherryville personal care assistant said. “I’m trying not to cry, because I would’ve wanted to be there. I cared about him.”
She said Somerset Court of Cherryville took her off the schedule in October after she documented the hospice patient’s sleeping conditions. Reeves said she recorded her eventual conversation with her supervisors.
“I care about these people, I really do,” she’s heard saying on the audio.
Reeves said that during that meeting, management told her the facility’s in-house healthcare provider ordered the resident to sleep on a mattress on the floor due to him being a fall risk.
“We can’t go against something that the doctor says, whether we agree with it or not,” one of two other woman is heard saying on the recording.
They acknowledged “it doesn’t look good,” but added this was the only alternative to keep the man from falling out of bed and to protect employees.
“It’s for his safety because he kept falling. He kept falling…” they said. “…We didn’t want you guys to get hurt either.”
Reeves said she tried escalating her concerns with the Gaston County Department of Social Services, but never received a callback.
“(Management) wanted to know why I was so upset about it and I expressed why I was upset about it,” Reeves said. “I said if I was his family member and I came in and I saw him, or even another resident’s family member walking by that room and I see this man rolled off into the floor on a mattress, that doesn’t look good at all. Not only that, with him being on oxygen, what if the cord would have got wrapped around his neck and he choked to death because he was in a back hallway?”
The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services told WCNC Charlotte a mattress on the floor is “acceptable if indicated and ordered by the resident’s physician.” Otherwise, state rules require a bed “equipped with box springs and mattress of solid link springs.”
Reeves said the man also did not have the two state-required bells to call for help in the case of an emergency.
“The entire time I worked with him, he never had a call bell,” Reeves said. “They’re all supposed to have call bells. One was the call bell around their neck. The other one would beep a little faster, which means they were in the bathroom. He had neither.”
Linda Jay
In the weeks before that resident passed away, Linda Jay died.
“They failed her miserably,” Jay’s daughter Shelley Dorton said. “It breaks my heart.”
Dorton said a Somerset Court employee called her in a panic on the October night her mom passed away.
“I heard crying, yelling,” Dorton recalled. “She was very, very upset and had called to say that my mom had food stuck in her throat and she was choking.”
Records obtained by WCNC Charlotte show the 73-year-old was on a special soft diet at the time, generally reserved for people who have trouble chewing and swallowing. Medical documentation shows she suffered from an inflamed esophagus earlier in 2024 and struggled with painful swallowing as a result.
Dorton said her “very sweet” mother died at the hospital a short time after the facility first called her. Jay’s death certificate, signed by the nurse practitioner associated with Somerset Court of Cherryville, doesn’t list choking as a cause of death, but Dorton said the emergency room doctor told the family that is what killed her.
“She was by herself, apparently eating and food got stuck in her throat,” she said. “She had kidney disease. That’s what I was expecting her to die from 10 years from now. Not from (choking).”
A current staff member and fellow residents tell WCNC Charlotte the facility’s call bell system wasn’t working that week.
Barbara Estes lives at Somerset Court. She said she lived across the hall from the woman.
“Our call bells had been turned off Wednesday of that week,” Estes said. “I seen (Linda Jay) grabbing her throat and running. She tried her best to get up there and get help.”
Estes said not only were the call bells down at that time, but they again stopped working for several days recently. She said, even when the call system is working, it often takes several minutes for staff to respond.
“It takes about 15 minutes,” Estes said. “It’s awful. You don’t get no help when you need it.”
Jay’s daughter said she’s yet to receive an explanation from Somerset Court about the circumstances surrounding her mother’s death.
“It’s like it’s not real. I feel like it should have never happened,” Dorton said. “We need to do better.”
She’s since filed a complaint with the state’s Division of Health Service Regulation.
Reeves said she’s also struggled with Jay’s death.
“I came into work and they said, ‘Just so you know, Linda Jay passed away,” Reeves recalled. “And I said, ‘Passed away?’ I said, ‘She wasn’t even sick. What do you mean?”
A little more than two weeks later, the hospice patient she photographed passed away. Reeves told WCNC Charlotte she at least takes comfort knowing, because of her, he wasn’t on the floor when he died.
“I was told he was put back in the bed,” she said.
Just a couple of months later in December, Reeves said Somerset Court of Cherryville fired her for showing up late to work too many times. She isn’t going quietly.
“Would I love to go back to work there? Yeah, but I just want (the residents) taken care of,” Reeves said.
No comments
WCNC Charlotte started sharing its reporting with both Somerset Court of Cherryville and its parent company more than three weeks ago and indicated an interest in arranging an on-camera interview to address the allegations about patient care. Neither responded to WCNC Charlotte’s phone calls and multiple emails. WCNC Charlotte also texted the executive director’s cell phone with no response.
Residents tell WCNC Charlotte DSS has visited the facility at least twice in recent weeks. DSS would not talk to WCNC Charlotte on-camera, but in an email, noted the agency regularly visited the facility, 12 times in all, throughout 2024.
NCDHHS said if someone has a concern about care, “they are strongly encouraged to file a complaint” with the DHSR Complaint Intake Unit by calling the hotline at 1-800-624-3004 or 919-855-4500. According to a letter sent to Dorton in response to her complaint, Gaston County DSS will be the agency that investigates her concerns and will eventually provide her with a written report.
Meanwhile, when asked, the Cherryville Police Department told WCNC Charlotte the agency is “not aware of any issues with Somerset Court.”
