Woman sues assisted care facility after husband’s death

Kim Smith

Thursday, Oct. 24, 2002 | 9:55 a.m.

When Betty Arnold put her husband of 49 years into an assisted living facility in August it was just a temporary measure. She had just had her fourth eye surgery, her daughter was recovering from back surgery and she wasn't able to take care of the him.

She never dreamed her 66-year-old husband would end up dead after wandering away from the facility just one month later.

After two weeks of searching the valley, Leslie Dean Arnold's body was found across the street and 50 feet from the very place he disappeared from -- the Village Oaks Assisted Living Center, 3025 E. Russell Road.

On Wednesday, Betty Arnold, 67, and two of her children, Nancy Lorenzen and Michael Arnold, filed a lawsuit against the facility and its parent companies.

According to the lawsuit and the Arnolds' attorney, Barry Levinson, the facility's employees were negligent in taking Leslie Arnold, who suffered from dementia and Parkinson's Disease, into their care and in their care of him.

Not only was the facility ill-equipped to deal with patients with dementia, but the facility didn't have the proper license either, Levinson said.

"I think they knew my clients had money and they decided to take a risk and take him in as a patient even though they weren't equipped to do so," Levinson said. "They wanted him to come in there because they wanted to fill their beds."

Attempts to reach Marriot, Emeritus Corp., the parent company of Village Oaks, were unsuccessful.

Betty Arnold and Lorenzen said they searched all over town for a facility they liked and settled on Village Oaks, which billed them $2,200 a month.

"We visited seven places and they were also so big and confusing," Arnold said. "We thought he would get confused there because we got confused there. Village Oaks was only one level and it was close to home."

Lorenzen said it wasn't until after her father's disappearance on Monday, Sept. 16., that they were told by facility staff members that her father had run out of medication on the previous Saturday, had broken a window in his room and repeatedly tried to leave that Sunday.

"It's pretty sad something like this had to happen," Arnold said. "If we had known what was going on down there, we wouldn't have left him there."

Arnold, who moved to Las Vegas with her husband a year ago from Colorado, said he was a smart and athletic man who sold health and life insurance for 35 years.

To think of the way he died is just horrific, she said.

"The main reason we filed this lawsuit is so some other family doesn't have to go through this," Arnold said.

"Older people are just as vulnerable as a little baby," Lorenzen said. "No one should have to go through this. He had to lay out there and suffer and die. It's pitiful."

The Arnold family is seeking unspecified punitive and compensatory damages.