Found Deceased MA - Tim White, 62, missing for five weeks, found in stairwell at Bedford VA Hospital

[weepingangel]

Body of man, missing for five weeks, found in stairwell at Bedford VA Hospital
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The body of a 62-year-old man, who has been missing for five weeks, was found in the stairwell of a Bedford VA Hospital on Friday, according to the Boston Globe.

He has last seen at the VA hospital on May 8, the Globe reports. Authorities said the man’s death is under investigation.

 

[GoBuckeyes]

Body of man, missing for five weeks, found in stairwell at Bedford VA Hospital
more at link

The body of a 62-year-old man, who has been missing for five weeks, was found in the stairwell of a Bedford VA Hospital on Friday, according to the Boston Globe.

He has last seen at the VA hospital on May 8, the Globe reports. Authorities said the man’s death is under investigation.

Stunned. How does that even happen at a medical facility?!

 

[Presley78]

Stunned. How does that even happen at a medical facility?!

I’ve personally never been to a VA hospital but have heard concerning things about them and the way they care for patients. I worked for the veterans in college using the GI bill and they became comfortable with me over time. So much that they would come see me in moments of crisis asking for my help to get a hold of someone at the VA. I didn’t have a direct line to anyone but they assumed I did because I could get a hold of people who handled their discharge paperwork. Anyways, they- the vets, would be waiting months to see someone for needs that ranged from severe headaches to hearing voices. The VA would never see them as an urgent matter. It was disturbing. Also, many of the vets had prescribed opiates that they would receive by mail. Copious amounts of them. The VA scares me.
So sorry for this man and his family. I wonder if he was on his was out and passed away in the stairwell.

 

[truecrimeallthetime]

Sadly it isn’t the first time this has happened. Happened in San Francisco a few years ago as well.

Woman found dead in stairwell of San Francisco hospital property was missing from nearby care facility

 

[crhedBngr]

Horrible. I suspect nobody takes the stairs, everybody uses the elevator/lift.

Sitting on my hands and keeping the rest of my cynical thoughts to myself.

JMVHO.

 

[sallye818]

Can they figure out through custodial staff how long the man may have been in the stairwell?

 

[Luckyzmom]

How unforgivable, please say a prayer for this vet and his family. Godspeed, Sir thank you for your service to our country. Rest in Peace

 

[mickey2942]

Doesn't surprise me at all.

 

[dalsglen]

We had a local new mum found dead in a hospital stairwell last year, found the next day though. The stairwell was an old one that doesn't lead anywhere nowadays so maybe this is also the case here?

 

[PayrollNerd]

Why in the world would any patient in a precarious health situation be in a stairwell anyway? This is bizarre that maintenance staff wouldn’t be asked to look everywhere, as soon as the notification of a missing patient was known. Big buildings, hospitals, offices, etc should have a process to prevent this. The cost will be a lot less than what is now to be a lawsuit over a needless death. This poor family must be so angry.

 

[mickey2942]

How much does anyone want to bet, that absolutely no one loses their job over this.

 

[ChatteringBirds]

In the original linked article it says charges could possibly be filed. But I'm confused. He was last seen at the hospital, but no one working there found him. What kind of search did they do? And the police must have been notified. Did they not search the hospital?

It's one thing if a person is found after awhile who went missing from a different location, but this is tragic.

 

[PayrollNerd]

I thought I had seen something with his name earlier today but I can’t find that. Maybe I was mistaken. ETA: Who saw, heard, or read a report on the alarm??? I’d say it was overlooked.

Man found dead in stairwell at Bedford VA Hospital Campus a month after he went missing

A fellow resident of the facility found the body, a spokeswoman for the DA’s office said.

A spokeswoman for Caritas Communities said the Bedford Veterans Quarters is a residential facility leased from the VA and provides housing for formerly homeless veterans.

She said the stairwell where the resident was found is outside the premises of Caritas and is alarmed and solely controlled by the VA.

 

[evilwise]

It's more than tragic. It's unacceptable. The world is going insane over the treatment of criminals by the police but innocent, helpless people are treated horribly by the people they've trusted to care for them and there's zero outrage.

 

[PayrollNerd]

It shouldn’t matter that they blocked off an area. All areas should have been searched.

https://nypost.com/2020/06/14/missing-veteran-found-dead-at-massachusetts-va-facility/

The victim was a 62-year-old former homeless veteran who was reported missing May 13 — five days after he was last seen. His name wasn’t released.

“It appears that he’s been there from the eighth of May,” Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan said, according to WBZ-TV.

She called what happened “very concerning.”

Residents told the station some exits have been blocked off to contain the coronavirus. They wondered if that’s why nobody found him in the stairwell.

 

[branmuffin]

How often did they CLEAN the damned place? Five weeks??!!

 

[SouthernMom]

How sad!

 

[Lilibet]

Sadly it isn’t the first time this has happened. Happened in San Francisco a few years ago as well.

Woman found dead in stairwell of San Francisco hospital property was missing from nearby care facility

I followed the Lynne Spalding case. It was devastating. It happened again twice with patients from that hospital since then. When you “lose” a patient you can’t assume they wouldn’t go somewhere....you have to tear the place apart. Get a detailed drawing of the floorplan and go through it systematically and sign off on each area as it’s searched. Just because “no one uses” a stairwell, doesn’t mean the patient wouldn’t be there. The case of this formerly homeless veteran is so sad!

SF General Hospital Sued By Family Of Second Woman Who Died Alone In Stairwell

Around the time Lynne disappeared, I was living in a retirement community. A woman who had just moved into assisted living disappeared the next morning. I told the police about Lynne so they would search every nook and cranny of the building and grounds. I even checked stairwells myself. Unfortunately she had managed to walk about two miles before she fell and died in some bushes. It really wasn’t anyone’s fault. Residents in assisted living weren’t in a locked facility, so she just walked off.

 

[mickey2942]

How often did they CLEAN the damned place? Five weeks??!!

Or even walk around doing Security checks. They have police officers who are supposed to be doing something.

 

[weepingangel]

A veteran died 20 yards from his room on the Bedford VA campus. No one noticed for five weeks - The Boston Globe
More at link
A veteran died 20 yards from his room on the Bedford VA campus. No one noticed for five weeks
Congressional delegation demands federal investigation of Tim White's tragic death
By Andrea Estes Globe Staff,Updated June 18, 2020,

Tim White still needed a walker to get around as he recovered from hip surgery. But the Army veteran and former chef, who lived in housing for formerly homeless veterans on the campus of the Bedford VA Medical Center, was in many ways his old self, wearing his trademark backwards baseball cap and befriending other residents.

Then, on May 8, the 62-year-old disappeared along with his walker. The private nonprofit that managed White’s building reported him missing to local police five days later.

But no one appears to have looked very hard for him: It turns out that White was lying at the bottom of a stairwell just 60 feet from his room for five weeks until a fellow resident discovered his body on June 12. White still had on the same clothes he was last seen wearing in early May — a baseball cap, Red Sox jersey, and jeans, according to the police report.