MPTF Facility Sued Over Alzheimer's Patient's Death

The family of Carrie DeLay, an 89-year-old Alzheimer’s patient who died last year following a fall at the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, has filed a lawsuit against the Motion Picture and Television Fund and its longterm care facility, reports The Wrap.

"The family is seeking unspecified damages and charging the MPTF with wrongful death, patient neglect, elder abuse and violation of the patient's Bill of Rights," reports The Wrap. The lawsuit alleges that DeLay, who was found at the bottom of a staircase, was left unsupervised and fell from a landing between the first and second floors of the facility resulting in a severe fracture to her spine and numerous cuts and bruises, notes CBS Local. She died of her injuries a week later.

Attorneys representing the family allege the incident took place nearly 300 feet from where the woman was left unsupervised. They also say wheelchair-bound DeLay who had lived at hospital for nearly a decade, passed by a nursing station and went behind a fire door which she was not able to open herself.

Before the accident, Delay had attended at a church activity on the first floor and was reportedly transported back to her room on the second floor, according to the family's lawyers, where she was left outside of her room at a table in full view of nurses and a nearby nursing station, notes CBS Local.