Editors note: Time was corrected from PM to AM
James Craig Bell was 55-years-old when he passed away inside Pelican Pointe Nursing Home and Rehabilitation Center on Sunnybrook Road.
Transferred and admitted into Pelican Pointe on September 18, 2023, dying 30 days later on October 17, 2023.
A death, his sister, Sue Bell said was due to neglect from the staff and was preventable.
“Do you think if the right people were still working at Pelican Pointe your brother would still be alive?”
“Absolutely. I miss him so much I can’t even express,” Sue said.
James also known as Jimmy, was diagnosed with neurodegenerative ataxia. Sue, who is fighting cancer, says it all started when Jimmy who lived in Minnesota at the time, slipped on a rock on the Mississippi River. Leading him to get back surgery and eventually being diagnosed with the illness.
Sue Bell
“He was in a wheelchair, he couldn’t feed himself, he couldn’t walk – he started to lose his speech it got to the point where he couldn’t – I don’t know the words I want to use. Go to the bathroom by himself,” Sue said.
Sue said this illness was killing her brother inside after he could no longer take care of himself and rely on care from others.
According to Sue, this illness was hard on Jimmy because he was an outdoors guy, loved to fish and camp, and was a welder who worked very hard.
All of the Bell siblings moved to Corpus Christi from Minnesota after Jimmy became ill to be closer to each other and help with Jimmy’s care. The Bell siblings were close to one another, after their parents died at a very young age.
The Bell siblings could no longer do at-home care for Jimmy, transferring him to a nursing home. After that nursing home was trying to transfer Jimmy to a sister facility in Dallas, Sue was scrambling to find another nursing home in the area to be able to take him – calling Pelican Pointe Nursing Home and Rehabilitation Center.
“It was about two weeks later, Pelican Pointe had called and they said four people had died and they had openings. That should have been my first sign right there. Four people just passed away. I know people pass away at nursing homes, but four people basically all at once?,” Sue said.
Sue would go visit Jimmy every day at Pelican Pointe, noticing signs of neglect from the staff.
“There were days I would find him lying in the bed. The bed was completely full of urine, his diaper was soaking wet and I asked them ‘he should not be laying here in a soaked bed full of urine - you wonder why he is screaming? He is screaming because he needs his diaper changed,’” said Sue.
“I felt like they blew me off,” said Sue.
It was the day before Jimmy’s death that Sue was finally able to take her brother outside to see the sun after nearly a month of being there.
When she got a phone call a little before 6 p.m. the next day, from staff telling her, Jimmy had passed away.
“My sister-in-law drove me down to Pelican and when we got in there and I saw him. He had vomit all over him,” Sue described.
“Then they told me that they heard him screaming, and he screamed for a while and then we went in there and this is how we found him,” she said.
Sue believes her brother aspirated and choked.
“I asked them what was going on. They said ‘he was in here watching the Dallas Cowboys and rooting them on’ - there is no way he was doing that we are from Minnesota we are Viking fans,” said Sue.
“Do you think that they neglected your brother?”
“Oh yeah, I do,” Sue replied.
Documents shared with KRIS 6 News show Pelican Pointe Staff found Jimmy, unresponsive at 4:45 a.m., initiated CPR at 4:50 a.m., called 911 at 4:55 a.m., and declared him dead at 5:15 a.m.
Documents obtained by KRIS 6 News show Pelican Pointe Staff didn’t call 911 until 5:19 a.m. – a 24-minute difference.
Sue said she regrets ever putting her brother inside Pelican Pointe and believes their neglectful care led to his death.
“I don’t want anything else than have them shut down and not have innocent residents die, because of their incompetence they should not even be hiring these people,” she said.
Sue also said she regrets not getting an autopsy for her brother but is now speaking out to warn others about the neglectful care staff members give inside this facility.
KRIS 6 reached out to Pelican Pointe Nursing Home and Rehabilitation Center for an in-person interview and tour of the facility.
They responded via their attorney:
“At this time Pelican Pointe respectfully declines your request for an in-person interview and facility tour. We have provided statements in the past that have been excerpted in a manner to fit a narrative not based in reality. We are aware of the subject matter that you would like to discuss. We are operating our facility without incident. No patients nor family members have brought to our attention issues pertaining to the concerns that your news station purports to address. We continue to work closely with our regulators and staff to provide the highest quality care for our residents. We provide ample opportunity to our residents and their families to bring their concerns to our attention and are committed to addressing any issues that arise. Thank you.”
Sue has filed a complaint against Pelican Pointe Nursing Home and Rehabilitation Center through Texas Health and Human Services.
If you would like to submit a complaint about a Texas Health and Human Services, click here.
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