Abuse Of Brain Injured Americans Scandalizes U.S.
By David Armstrong - Jul 24, 2012 2:15 PM CT
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Soon after Peter Price arrived at the Florida Institute for Neurologic Rehabilitation to recover from a brain injury, he pleaded for a rescue.
“Jess, they beat me up,” Price told his sister, Jessica Alopaeus, in May 2009. “You have to get me out of here.”
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Peter Price is a resident patient at a facility in Bradenton, Florida. He and his family have been instrumental in exposing the problems at his previous facility Florida Institute for Neurologic Rehabilitation in Wauchula, Florida. Photographer: William S. Speer/Bloomberg
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July 24 (Bloomberg) -- Janet Clark and Kenneth Aulph, former patients at the Florida Institute for Neurologic Rehabilitation, talk with Bloomberg's David Armstrong about the alleged abuse of patients by staff at the facility. About 150 patients live on the FINR campus in Wauchula, Florida, making it one of the largest rehabilitation centers for brain injuries in the country. (Source: Bloomberg)
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July 24 (Bloomberg) -- A staff member at the Florida Institute for Neurologic Rehabilitation in Wauchula, Florida, is allegedly caught on tape abusing a patient. A ceiling surveillance camera shows employee McKinkley "Jerome" Scott on Dec. 4, 2011, grabbing the patient, standing him up, then kicking his feet out from under him and pushing him to the ground, according to the State Attorney's Office. Scott faces a pending charge of abusing a disabled person. He has pled not guilty. (Source: Bloomberg via State Attorney's Office)
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July 24 (Bloomberg) -- Danny Silva, a patient at the Florida Institute for Neurologic Rehabilitation in Wauchula, Florida, is allegedly abused by staff members Landrey Johnson and LaKevin Johnson on Sept. 14, 2011. A FINR employee secretly filmed the event. Landrey Johnson and LaKevin Johnson were arrested and charged with abuse of a disabled adult. They are currently awaiting trial and have pled not guilty. (Source: Bloomberg via State Attorney's Office.)
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The grounds of The Florida Institute for Neurologic Rehabilitation (FINR) in Wauchula on April 27, 2010. Photographer: Cathy Kemper via Bloomberg
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The grounds of The Florida Institute for Neurologic Rehabilitation (FINR) in Wauchula on April 27, 2010. Photographer: Cathy Kemper via Bloomberg
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Reginald Hicks, right, was taken to the cafeteria by a FINR employee and given solid food that lodged in his lungs and killed him last December, according to his daughter, Heather Hicks. Her father, a former mortgage worker injured in a car accident, had a care plan that called for tube feeding because he couldn’t swallow, she said. Autopsy findings cited aspiration of food and pneumonia as causes of death. Photographer: Suzonne Shivers via Bloomberg
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Kenneth Aulph, a former lumberjack who was hit by a car while walking across a highway 12 years ago, said he received little psychological therapy, was assigned useless tasks, and saw patient beatings. Photographer: Cathy Kemper via Bloomberg
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Defendants LaKevin Johnson, left, Landrey Johnson, center, and McKinley Scott are accused of abusing patients at The Florida Institute of Neurologic Rehabilitation (FINR). All three have pleaded not guilty to the charges. Source: Hardee County Sheriff's Office via Bloomberg
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The Florida Institute for Neurologic Rehabilitation is seen in this screenshot taken on July 20, 2012 from Google Earth. The 25-building compound is located on Vandolah Road in Wauchula, Florida. Source: Google Earth via Bloomberg
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Janet Clark said, “One time they had me down and one of the staff kicked me in the eye with a boot." Source: Janet Clark via Bloomberg
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Some patients of the Florida Institute for Neurologic Rehabilitation say staffers didn't always restrain them in the proper way, kicking them and punching them in some instances. BARR restraint on an adult is supposed to be administered by three people on a 2 inch thick foam mat.
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Staffers at his new home held him down and punched him in the face and groin, Price said. When Alopaeus’s efforts to transfer him stalled, Price said his desperation led him to a step aimed at speeding his release.
He swallowed five fish hooks and 22 AA batteries he’d picked up during a patient outing at Wal-Mart. After emergency surgery to remove the objects, he was allowed to transfer to another facility.
Residents at the Florida Institute have often been abused, neglected and confined, according to 20 current and former patients and their family members, criminal charges, civil complaints and advocates for the disabled.
These sources and over 2,000 pages of court and medical records, police reports, state investigations and autopsies contain an untold history of violence and death at the secluded institute known as FINR, which is located amid cattle ranches and citrus groves in Hardee County, 50 miles southeast of Tampa.
Patients’ families or state agencies have alleged abuse or care lapses in at least five residents’ deaths since 1998, two of them in the last 18 months. Three former employees face criminal charges of abusing FINR patients -- one of whom was allegedly hit repeatedly for two hours in a TV room last September.
Sparse Care
The complaints underscore the problems that 5.3 million brain-injured Americans are having finding adequate care. Their numbers are growing, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as better emergency medicine and vehicle safety mean that fewer die from traffic accidents, bullet wounds and other causes of traumatic brain injuries.
The long-term ills range from memory loss and physical handicaps to the inability to control violent anger or sexual aggression. Yet because insurance benefits for rehabilitation are scarce, less than half of those who need it receive it, according to the Brain Injury Association of America.
Organized as a company and operated for profit since 1992, FINR has become one of the largest brain-injury centers in the country, with 196 beds. Three rival providers say they know of no place bigger. Multi-site operator NeuroRestorative, owned by a holding of buyout firm Vestar Capital Partners, handles more patients.
FINR hasn’t grown by opening its doors to anyone who needs rehabilitation, customers say. Rather, its marketing is focused on the relative few who can pay bills that reach $1,850 a day.
Michigan Mandate
That includes those injured on jobs with generous worker’s compensation benefits, and car-crash victims in Michigan --which mandates unlimited lifetime benefits for automobile injury coverage.
Those who have clashed with the company over the treatment of patients say its efforts to keep costs down and extend the duration of stays take priority over care and rehabilitation.
“All people are to them is a monetary gain,” said Jana Thorpe, a professional guardian who removed one of her wards from the company’s care in 2008. “They don’t care if they do anything for them.”
Steven Siporin, another guardian, says he has placed patients at FINR when no one else would take them, and doesn’t expect to send more.
“Is this the best society can do? No,” he says of FINR. “Is this the best under current options? Yes.”
Difficult Clients
Florida’s Department of Children and Families has received 477 allegations of abuse or neglect at FINR since 2005, including 36 that were “verified” by its investigations, according to records released by the agency. The 36 verified claims and others were referred to law enforcement, according to Erin Gillespie, a spokeswoman for the agency, who said she didn’t know what became of the referrals.
FINR executives declined to comment for this story and turned down a request to visit its Wauchula, Florida, facility. Owner Joseph Brennick said he “preferred to stay out of the news” before ending a short phone conversation and directing questions to a lawyer, who said he would not answer them.
On its website, the company calls itself a leader in brain- injury rehabilitation. In past statements it has said it vends “extremely high quality care to very difficult clients” aimed at returning them to their homes, doesn’t use seclusion and has “zero tolerance” for resident abuse.
Elbow Shots
Hardee County prosecutors have charged two FINR staffers with abusing Danny Silva, a 21-year-old autistic patient. Video of the alleged crime shows two large men flanking a smaller figure on a sofa as they punch, elbow and slap him at least 30 times. The blows often come after moans from the man in the middle, which appear to be making it hard for his assailants to hear the TV.
“Shut up, man,” they say in the video, taped by a FINR staffer, according to police. “You are getting on my damn nerves,” one of the hitters tells the smaller man between two elbow shots. A woman in nurse’s clothes shows up in the video to give the alleged victim his medicine.
Defendants LaKevin Johnson, 30, and Landrey Johnson, 39, of Fort Meade, Florida, have pleaded not guilty to the charges. Their lawyer didn’t return calls seeking comment.
Employee McKinley Scott pulled autistic patient Gabriel Allen up from his seat and threw him to the ground last December in a second case, prosecutors say. A video in the case shows a man identified as Scott pushing Allen away from him on a couch, standing him up, kicking his legs out from under him and leaving him curled up on the floor next to a blinking Christmas tree. Scott, 48, has pleaded not guilty to an abuse charge. His lawyer didn’t return calls.
’Positional Asphyxia’
In an earlier incident, Michael Lieux, a brain-injured ex- Marine from Louisiana, suffocated when four FINR employees pinned him face down until he couldn’t breathe, according to a negligence lawsuit that won his family a $5 million jury verdict in 2005.
It was homicide by “positional asphyxia,” according to the medical examiner for Hardee County. The company denied it was negligent and lost its appeal in the case.
Two resident deaths at FINR that same year led to confidential settlements of lawsuits alleging negligence and care lapses that the company denied. In 2009, a FINR staffer pleaded guilty to battery charges after punching out a resident who had scratched him during a restraint.
Fiery Fist
More recently, Reginald Hicks was taken to the cafeteria by a FINR employee and given solid food that lodged in his lungs and killed him last December, according to his daughter, Heather Hicks. Her father, a former mortgage-workout specialist injured in a car accident, had a care plan that called for tube feeding because he couldn’t swallow, she said. Autopsy findings cited aspiration of food and pneumonia as causes of death.
FINR’s marketing appears aimed at acquiring tough behavioral cases, including aggressive patients. Its website features an addominated by a clenched, fiery-colored fist -- “One of the Subtle Signs That It’s Time for Neurological Rehabilitation,” according to the headline.
The road to the company’s 900-acre spread in Wauchula passes fields of grazing cattle and trees draped in Spanish Moss. It houses 152 beds, with 44 more in nearby apartments and group homes. The “secluded, pastoral” locale keeps residents from trying to run away, the company has said. Other deterrents, current and former patients say, are the alligators and snakes roaming the property.
Family History
The facility was once part of New Medico Inc., a chain founded by Charles Brennick, the father of FINR owner Joseph Brennick. A 1992 Congressional investigation highlighted allegations that New Medico staff abused patients and prolonged stays to boost revenues.
Joseph Brennick, then a senior New Medico employee, promised to block discharges to keep clients, the final Congressional report said. If one wanted to leave, staffers should “all jump all over him as a team until he stays,” the report quoted a Brennick memo as saying.
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