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SC minister died of COVID at Jasper Co. nursing home. His son says facility was negligent

Island Packet - 12/14/2021

Dec. 14—A S.C. Methodist minister died in a COVID-19 outbreak last year at a Ridgeland nursing home after its director allowed a resident to leave and return without quarantining, recent court documents allege.

The Rev. Thomas S. Summers Jr., 81, died on July 22, 2020 after contracting COVID-19. That would not have happened, a Dec. 3 notice of intent to file a lawsuit contends, if Ridgeland Nursing Center's director had not violated the rules on residents leaving and being readmitted to the facility.

The minister's son, Thomas S. Summers III, filed the notice of intent to file suit in Jasper County court as personal representative of his father's estate. In medical malpractice cases in South Carolina, attorneys must first file a notice of intent to file a lawsuit, complete with an expert's affidavit, before filing a lawsuit. This allows for mandatory mediation before a lawsuit goes forward.

About a month before Summers' death, director Sheri Boyles "violated the nursing facilities policy by signing out a Ridgeland resident, accompanying her to a crowded funeral, and signing her back into the nursing home .... Upon return, the resident was not screened for symptoms, tested, or quarantined from the rest of the facilities' residents," the court documents allege.

Four days after the funeral, both the resident and Boyles tested positive for COVID-19. The virus eventually spread to 21 residents, the lawsuit states. Five residents, including Summers, died as a result.

Asked to verify these claims, Boyles responded in an email that the facility could not comment.

"We just received notice of this filing and are in the process of reviewing it. Therefore, we are not in a position to provide any comment at this time," Boyles wrote Dec. 10.

At the time of the outbreak, policies by the nursing facility, S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control's guidance, and Gov. Henry McMaster's executive orders barred visitations, discouraged unnecessary travel, and asked for testing and separation of readmitted patients to screen for COVID, according to the notice.

Older adults in a confined space like a nursing home are doubly vulnerable to COVID-19 spread and sickness. At the time of Summers' death, there were no publicly available vaccines for COVID-19.

The lawsuit states that DHEC interviewed Ridgeland Nursing Center officials after the outbreak, with two officials saying that the center's policy required residents who left and returned to be isolated and monitored for 14 days.

However, Boyles told DHEC that "residents who left the facility were not considered readmissions and did not need to be isolated and monitored. Instead, Boyles stated she made the decision to let the resident leave the facility and return without isolation," the lawsuit states.

The notice says Summers' estate will seek an unspecified amount of damages.

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