Alfonso Jansen’s family members say that when they placed him in the ManorCare skilled nursing care facility in Plantation, they expected him to be taken care of. But they say workers at the home neglected the 93-year-old man and left him to die.
Federal reports show that Jansen was left under a gazebo, apparently forgotten, in “direct sun” for 3 hours and 45 minutes on Oct. 5. The temperature that day reached 88 degrees. The Broward County medical examiner’s report shows the 93-year-old had second- and third-degree burns on his body and ruled that “thermal exposure” was a “contributory factor” in his death.
“It’s very hard for myself and for my mother – definitely very, very, very hard," said Jansen’s stepdaughter Sorine Williams, "because we don’t really think that it was his time yet to leave this world.”
ManorCare spokesperson Julie Beckert said in a statement, “The staff at ManorCare-Plantation is deeply saddened by Mr. Jansen’s death.”
The facility is “designed to allow patients to reach the highest practicable level of life enjoyment,” Beckert said.
No one at ManorCare can speak about Jansen’s case because of “patient confidentiality,” she said.
Jansen’s family is now considering suing the nursing care facility.
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"He expected and his family expected that he would be cared for and treated with dignity and respect," said the family’s attorney, Michael Freedland. “And instead they left him out there and he literally baked to death in the hot Florida sun."
"We miss him a lot," Williams said. "We miss him very, very much.”
Jansen’s loved ones told NBC 6 that they initially placed him in a facility owned by the same company in Boca Raton where they felt he got better care. Now they regret moving him to the Plantation location where he died.
Plantation Police and the state attorney are evaluating the possibility of criminal charges.
