Woman rescued from trailer gets care

By Denise Dick

BOARDMAN — A 91-year-old woman found earlier this month in a house trailer without heat is being cared for in a nursing home.

The Family Services Agency also is pursuing guardianship of the woman.

The furnace in the trailer at Martin Trailer Park, South Avenue, had malfunctioned. This was discovered when a social worker from the Adult Protective Services unit of Mahoning County Department of Job and Family Services checked on the woman Feb. 5. Temperatures that day dipped to the single digits, and pop sitting on the kitchen counter had frozen.

“I had been checking on her every day or every other day,” the social worker said, adding that she handles all of her cases that way.

Because of safety concerns, social workers’ names are not made public.

The social worker, who calls her work her passion, doesn’t like to think about what would have happened had she not checked on the elderly woman that day.

“She probably would have died,” the social worker said.

The Adult Protective Services unit provides assistance to people 60 years and older who are neglected by others, self-neglected, abused or financially exploited.

The unit may be reached at (330) 884-6952. It includes four social workers for all of Mahoning County.

Lisa Solley, spokeswoman for the District XI Area Agency on Aging, believes four social workers aren’t enough for the county.

“Not if you look at our population,” she said.

The 2000 U.S. Census reported nearly 42,000 Mahoning County residents aged 65 and older. That’s 17 percent compared with a 12.5 percent U.S. average.

No other agency provides the services performed by APS.

Potential layoffs have been discussed at JFS in the wake of a $5 million reduction in state and federal funding. Other Ohio counties’ JFS operations already have given layoff notices to employees.

In Trumbull County, which is also part of the District XI agency, a senior levy provides additional funding — about $80,000 — to help with such costs. State funding for protective services totals $500,000 for all 88 Ohio counties.

“It’s a problem when we start treating older adults as if they’re throwaways,” Solley said.

The township woman’s case was referred to protective services in December by someone concerned about her well-being.

“Every time I’d check on her, I would ask her how she was doing,” the social worker said.

The woman always said she was fine, though it was obvious she needed help, the worker said. The victim has no children but has siblings out of state.

After the initial referral, the social worker visited the woman at her trailer and concluded after speaking with her that she suffered from dementia, likely Alzheimer’s disease.

The social worker was trying to set up an appointment with the woman’s doctor. But she learned that the physician — to whom the social worker was mailing information — hadn’t seen the woman for more than a year. She also referred the case to Family Services.

The social worker was communicating with one of the woman’s siblings but learned through another of the woman’s relatives that much of the information she received wasn’t accurate.

Each time the social worker checked on the woman, she would knock on her trailer door, introduce herself and check on her. She ensured the furnace was operational, that she had food and upon leaving, made sure the woman locked the door. On all previous visits, it was hot in the woman’s trailer.

The social worker was concerned about the woman, who had reportedly been distributing cash to people within the trailer park.

When the worker checked on the woman two days before the heat went off, it was working and the worker found nothing out of the ordinary.

She didn’t check the following day but returned the day after. She found the door unlocked, no heat and the woman shivering inside. She could see the woman’s breath and advised her to crawl into her bed and cover up to keep warm.

“It was then that I saw an icicle on the bathroom faucet,” the social worker said.

She saw an icicle on the kitchen faucet, too, and noticed the frozen soft drinks on the counter.

She called 911. Fire and ambulance personnel checked the woman, a police sergeant filled out an application for emergency admission for hospitalization, and the woman was taken to St. Elizabeth Health Center. She remained at the hospital until admittance into the nursing home.

denise_dick@vindy.com