The B.C. Coroner’s Service and health authority inspectors are investigating how an elderly woman with dementia managed to walk out of her seniors care home in Lynn Valley and end up dead of hypothermia.
Authorities are looking into what happened at the privately-run Sunrise Senior Living facility after an exhaustive ground search for 76-year-old Joan Warren ended with the discovery of her body by a hiker near Lynn Canyon’s Twin Falls on Sunday.
RCMP, North Shore Rescue and hundreds of volunteers spent the weekend combing the forest around Lynn Canyon in temperatures that dipped well below freezing after Warren went missing from her seniors’ home.
Her body was found off a trail south of Twin Falls in Lynn Canyon Park. Preliminary indications are that she died of hypothermia.
In a televised interview, Warren’s North Vancouver family thanked searchers for their efforts and for bringing closure to he disappearance, but questioned how she was able to get out of the care home to begin with.
“We felt we had done everything we could to keep her safe,” Warren’s daughter Celia Dino told the CBC.
The authorities are now also asking questions about security and monitoring of Alzheimer’s patients at the facility. Neurological changes in many people with the disease make them prone to wandering.
Vancouver Coastal Health inspectors charged with making sure private care homes meet provincial standards have spent the past two days at Sunrise, talking to staff there, said Greg Ritchey, regional manager of licensing for Vancouver Coastal Health.
Ritchey said both public and private care facilities are routinely inspected to ensure they meet standards set by the Community Care and Assisted Living Act. Sunrise was considered a low risk for problems, based on recent inspections, said Ritchey.
It’s not the first time the care home has been investigated in a death of a dementia patient, however.
In 2011, an investigation was launched into the choking death of Edward Mooney, another elderly man at Sunrise Lynn Valley.
The investigation confirmed complaints by Mooney’s family that he was fed by staff who were not adequately trained, was not monitored as required, and that staff lied about how Mooney died.
After that, a plan was put in place and the facility made significant changes, said Anna Marie D’Angelo, spokeswoman for Vancouver Coastal Health.
Nobody at Sunrise Lynn Valley — part of a U.S.-based chain —was prepared to speak about Warren. Instead, the facility sent out an emailed statement expressing “heartfelt sympathies” to Warren’s family and confirming that an internal investigation is underway.
According to the North Vancouver RCMP, Warren was first discovered missing from her seniors care home in the 900-block of Lynn Valley Road around 11 a.m. Friday morning. Staff alerted the RCMP, who launched a search in conjunction with North Shore Rescue that afternoon.
A credible report was received early on that a woman matching Warren’s description had been spotted near Lynn Canyon Park so searchers concentrated their efforts in that area.
Searchers also used social media, and a special emergency alert system of the North Shore Emergency Management Office to send emails and automatic phone calls to area residents, asking them to search their properties for signs of the missing woman.
