Police probing death of patient, 59

Prosperity police are investigating the death of a former resident of a Newberry County adultcare facility who died last week.

Authorities are calling the man’s condition one of the worst cases of neglect they have seen.

“Matter of fact, that’s putting it mildly,” Prosperity Police Chief Craig Nelson said Tuesday.

William Sealy, 59, died Friday at Newberry County Memorial Hospital, Nelson said. Until Sealy’s hospitalization a day earlier, he had been a resident of Southside Residential Care Facility in Prosperity.

Nelson declined to disclose the cause of Sealy’s death, and efforts Tuesday to reach the Newberry County coroner’s office were unsuccessful.

Nelson said police are investigating Southside, but it’s too early to say whether charges will be filed.

The hospital contacted police Thursday, and Nelson was able to speak briefly with Sealy. Police took him into protective custody

the same day. Nelson said Sealy had a number of health problems and looked frail.

Nelson told TV station WLTX that Sealy had bedbugs and that he had been wearing the same pair of socks for so long that skin came off with them when they were removed.

Efforts Tuesday to reach Southside administrator and owner Roy Bowers were unsuccessful.

Bowers has owned the facility for at least 10 years, according to licensing records with the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control, which oversees adult-care facilities.

“They have issues from time to time, like many facilities,” spokesman Thom Berry said. “But nothing we would consider a major violation.”

DHEC learned of Sealy’s death from Prosperity police, but regulators will not be involved until the criminal investigation is complete, Berry said.

Southside’s last inspection based on a complaint was in September, after someone called DHEC and said residents were being left alone at night, Berry said.

Inspectors could not corroborate the complaint, and it was judged as unfounded, he said.

The last routine inspection was in January 2007, when officials found problems with documentation to show that staff members were meeting training requirements and that plans for caring for residents were properly updated, Berry said. The facility fixed those problems, he said.

Southside is the second S.C. adult-care facility in less than a month to face accusations of serious problems with quality of care.

Peachtree Manor, a Fairfield County center, was evacuated March 28 by state officials when they learned the embattled facility did not have enough medications for residents. The pharmacy supplying the medicines refused to restock because Peachtree had not paid its bill.

It was the latest in a series of infractions inspectors found starting in 2006, the first year of Peachtree’s operation.

Last week, a judge supported the immediate transfer of all Peachtree residents and upheld the revocation of its license.