Staffing was so inadequate at a California senior center that a rat crawled into an Alzheimer’s patient’s mouth and died there before staff noticed, a lawsuit claims.
The lawsuit, filed Thursday on behalf of 90-year-old Sigmund Bock, alleges that administrators at the Paragon Gardens Assisted Living and Memory Care Community in Mission Viejo overbooked their facility to receive corporate bonuses, but cut back on staff to increase profits.
“The facility so literally ignored the needs of their residents … as to allow vermin in the form of a rat to become lodged in the mouth of Sigmund Bock and die therein,” the lawsuit alleges.
Bock’s attorney, Stephen Garcia, challenged that account. He said two traps were placed in Bock’s room and both were laced with poison, not glue.
He said Paragon records show a staff person noticed Bock “playing with a rat in his room and eating candy … with the rat” on the morning of March 18. A short time later, Garcia said, paramedics called to the scene noted “possible ingestion of rat poison” in their report and an emergency room file says that Bock was “found in room in care facility with dead rat in mouth.”
Bock is now being treated at another facility, Garcia said. The lawsuit seeks unspecified punitive damages and attorney and court fees.
