Longwood at Oakmont
PITTSBURGH - The family of a former resident at a Pittsburgh-area retirement community says staff lost track of her for the better part of the week, leading to her death at the bottom of a hill from hypothermia.
The Estate of Eleanor Corcoran sued Longwood at Oakmont and others June 25 in the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas following the 91-year-old woman's death from hypothermia last fall.
The suit says Longwood failed to react when motion sensors reported no movement in Corcoran's apartment, starting on Oct. 31. Still, she wasn't found until Nov. 4, as staff believed she had taken a trip.
In reality, she had gone to the top of a steep hill to throw out some of her plants and apparently fell. Stuck, she died in the cold.
"No employee for Longwood at Oakmont had properly searched the premises after Ms. Corcoran's personal belongings had been located on the property," the suit says.
"No employee for Longwood at Oakmont talked with any of Ms. Corcoran's friends or acquaintances to determine if Ms. Corcoran had told them she would be leaving the premises for any reason.
"In evaluating the area where Ms. Corcoran fell and died, the area was dangerous and posed a significant risk to tenants such as Ms. Corcoran."
Her stepdaughter spoke with her on Oct. 30 but couldn't reach her after, leading her to calling Plum police on Nov. 4. When she called Corcoran's case worker at Longwood, she was told Corcoran's shopping cart had been found and returned on Nov. 2.
The motion sensor had indicated no movement in her apartment for 24 hours on Oct. 31. Security checked the apartment on Nov. 1, not finding Corcoran, her keys or her purse.
Those items were found by another tenant in Corcoran's shopping cart on Nov. 2. But Corcoran wasn't found, and though her car was in the parking lot, it wasn't in its assigned space.
Despite finding a shopping cart with her keys and purse, staff didn't conduct a search or call police or family. Instead, they put the items in a security locker, the suit says.
A friend told Corcoran's stepdaughter that Corcoran had said she was going to dispose of flowers by throwing them over a hillside. The suit says no one at Longwood ever bothered to ask that friend about Corcoran.
"The temperature for the days Ms. Corcoran laid helplessly by herself at the bottom of the steep, rocky and rugged hillside was between the 40s-60s, which means that Corcoran suffered greatly before succumbing to hypothermia," the suit says.
Mark Troyan of Robert Peirce & Associates represents the plaintiff.
