Man who drowned at nursing home in hurricane puddle wouldn’t come inside, report says

A man who drowned at a nursing home during Hurricane Matthew refused directions to come inside while he was outside smoking, according to the incident report from the Richland County Sheriff’s Department.

David Outlaw, 66, was found dead at National Health Care in the 7600 block of Parklane Road shortly before 8 a.m. Saturday. He was face down, pinned underneath his wheelchair, officials said.

An autopsy revealed he drowned after falling out of the wheelchair.

The incident report says staff told law enforcement that after Outlaw refused to come inside, a nurse went to give him medication several minutes later, and spotted the wheelchair upside down.

Investigators are trying to determine if there was negligence involved in Outlaw’s death, sheriff’s spokesman Lt. Curtis Wilson said.

The nursing home is also under investigation by the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control because of the incident, DHEC officials said.

DHEC also provided details of two recent complaints against the nursing home.

One complaint alleged that on Feb. 7, when a resident’s oxygen concentrator malfunctioned, she was found “gasping for air, incoherent, soaked with urine and no nurse or aid had attended her.” The same complaint claimed that on Feb. 10, there was another oxygen concentrator failure, and the resident’s oxygen level dropped to 41. The second complaint alleged that a resident was improperly admitted to the facility on April 28.

DHEC inspections found no fault with the nursing home in either of these instances.

Repeated requests for comment from National Health Care, both corporate and local offices, have not been returned since the incident happened.

This story was originally published October 12, 2016 at 9:22 AM with the headline "Man who drowned at nursing home in hurricane puddle wouldn’t come inside, report says."