Death – Obituary : Nashville man dies after going missing from assisted living facility – Cause Of Death
A Nashville assisted living facility was recently forbidden from accepting new residents after a man with dementia wandered out of his room, exited the building without triggering an alarm, spent the night outside and died on the facility grounds.
J.B. Knowles Home Assisted Living, which is owned by the city and has long served historically Black neighborhoods in North Nashville, was suspended from new admissions by a March 13 order from Tennessee Health Commissioner Dr. Lisa Piercey.
A Knowles administrator said Thursday the facility has since taken corrective steps to make the facility more secure, so the suspension is expected to be lifted shortly.
Piercey’s order doesn’t explain the cause of the suspension in detail. The Tennessee Department of Health, which is responsible for oversight of assisted living facilities, claims the documents explaining the need for the order are confidential.
But it is clear the suspension was caused at least in part by a recent death at the facility.Michael Walker, 64, a Knowles resident, was missing for hours before being found dead outside the facility on Feb. 28, according to the Nashville Metro Police Department.
Walker’s death remains under investigation, but it is not a criminal investigation at this time, police spokesperson Kris Mumford said. Walker’s body showed no signs of drug use or foul play, Mumford said, and police are waiting on the Davidson County Medical Examiner to determine his cause of death.
Although Walker was found dead more than five weeks ago, and the Knowles facility was barred from accepting new residents for more than three weeks, it appears that none of this information has been publicly reported until now.
Kendall Brune, managing partner of AnthemCare, which runs the facility on behalf of the Nashville government, said Walker was able to leave the building undetected because an alarm did not trigger when a door was opened.
“We had an older door system and the door lock system did not sound,” Brune said. “So it’s one of the things that we needed to have updates on in this facility. And so we did get those new alarm systems put in and integrated with our security system.”
Brune said Knowles has since installed new doors with working alarms and updated its security system. He provided documents showing state inspectors have re-examined the facility and cleared it of violations last week.
As of 1 p.m. on Thursday, the facility was waiting on final word from state health officials before re-opening its doors to new residents, Brune said.
Police: Security cameras showed missing man wandering facility
Police were first called to the Knowles facility at about 5 a.m. on the morning of Feb. 28 after Walker was reported “missing” from his room at the facility, Mumford said. After a search of the facility, Walker was discovered laying down outside with no pulse.
Facility staff told police the last time they had seen Walker was at about 8 p.m. the night before. Mumford said a review of Knowles security footage revealed more: Walker could be seen walking the halls of the facility, then wandering outside the building. At about midnight, Walker was seen sitting on a sidewalk at the rear of the facility property, Mumford said. Footage showed that at about 1 a.m. Walker laid down on the ground in the same location police found his body the next morning, Mumford said.
Brune said he suspected that Walker, who suffered from dementia, was attempting to leave the building to enter a courtyard garden where some residents can spend time during the day.
“He went out and walked around the building and never left the site, on a normal pathway around the courtyards, and sat down and passed, which you can see on video tape,” Brune said.
Three days after Walker died, the Tennessee Department of Health conducted an inspection of the Knowles facility in response to an undisclosed complaint.
Ten days later, the state health commissioner issued an order suspending all admissions at the facility, citing violations of standards for resident safety and “daily awareness of the individual’s whereabouts.” The conditions at the facility “are, or are likely to be, detrimental to the health, safety or welfare of the residents,” the order states.
What is the future of Knowles assisted living?
The suspension of new admissions comes at a precarious time for the Knowles Assisted Living facility.
Nashville leaders for years have been trying to gently withdraw from the business of running long-term care facilities. The contract with AnthemCare is set to expire in June. City officials are yet to choose who will run the facility in the future.
Knowles has a long history as a part of Nashville’s social services safety net. For decades, Knowles and a neighboring facility, the Bordeaux nursing home, served older residents with limited finances in the historically Black neighborhoods of North Nashville. The facilities were operated by separate private companies but both are owned by the city and subsidized with millions in tax dollars.
The Bordeaux nursing home closed earlier this year after its operator, Signature HealthCare, declined to continue running the site and no other companies stepped up. Bordeaux employees were laid off and residents were transferred to other nursing homes in the midst of a coronavirus pandemic that already put jobs and health at risk.
Although the closure of the Bordeaux facility does not directly threaten the neighboring Knowles facility, some city officials are concerned about another looming closure. The Metro Council has expressed willingness to continue to subsidize Knowles at its current level – about $2 million per year – while encouraging the mayor to develop a long-term plan that requires no subsidy from taxpayers.
Andrea Fanta, a spokesperson for Mayor John Cooper, said Thursday the Cooper administration remains “fully invested and deeply committed” to finding an operator for the facility. AnthemCare has expressed interest in continuing to run Knowles, but other companies show little interest, she said.
“Our No.1 priority is that the patients get safe care that meets the highest standard,” Fanta said. “We fully expect the operator to work with the state to fix those issues as quickly as possible.”
Health officials: Inspection reports are ‘confidential’
Although the suspension of new admissions at Knowles hinged on a state investigation at the facility, it remains unclear exactly what inspectors saw. These details are contained in an inspector’s report, also called a “statement of deficiencies,” that the suspension order cites as justification.
Sarah Tanksley, a spokesperson for the Tennessee Department of Health, said Wednesday the agency will not release the “statement of deficiencies” because it is “confidential” under a state statute limiting the disclosure of medical records.
This appears to be a new stance for the health department. The department released very similar documents under very similar circumstances at least twice before.
During separate events in 2018, the health commissioner issued orders to suspend admissions at two troubled nursing homes – Caring Estates in Arlington and Westmoreland Health and Rehabilitation Center in Knoxville. In both instances, the health department provided a copy of the “statement of deficiencies” to a Tennessean reporter upon request.
The health department also maintains a public page on its website where hundreds of similar documents are kept online, available to the public. The site includes recent inspection reports from Tennessee nursing homes, most of which include a “summary statement of deficiencies.”
Brett Kelman is the health care reporter for The Tennessean. He can be reached at 615-259-8287 or at brett.kelman@tennessean.com. Follow him on Twitter at @brettkelman.
Cause Of Death
As the time of this publication on Societyalert, the cause of death has not been learnt by us. Information regarding the cause of death or circumstances that led to this devastating passing would be made available once we learn about it.
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