Family holds Bluffton care facility responsible after dementia patient went missing, died

In the summer of 2022, a 79-year-old suffering from dementia walked out of his Bluffton-area assisted living home and was never again seen alive. As the family of Jack Tribble asked for the public’s help, his missing persons photo was seen on newspapers, websites and TV screens across the Lowcountry. The search ended two weeks later, when authorities found his body about a half-mile away from where he was last seen — but little was known at the time about how the patient got out of the secured building unnoticed.

Now, Tribble’s family has taken a prerequisite step toward suing The Palmettos of Bluffton assisted living facility, located on S.C. 170 east of Sun City. Allegations laid out in new court filings involve a construction worker, a smartwatch and a handful of careless mistakes that reportedly contributed to the patient’s fatal disappearance. All claims made in the pre-lawsuit documents are inherently one-sided, as the defendants have yet to respond to the accusations made by the plaintiff’s attorneys.

After extensive search efforts around Bluffton following his disappearance Aug. 23, 2022, Tribble was found dead Sept. 6 in a heavily wooded, swampy area less than half a mile from The Palmettos. An autopsy indicated he had died two days prior from environmental exposure that led to acute bronchopneumonia.

Tribble had Lewy body dementia, a common form of the condition that can lead to memory lapses, decreased decision-making skills and movement issues as those seen in patients with Parkinson’s disease. Relatives said he experienced auditory hallucinations and had a “significant history of wandering.”

Filed March 5 in Beaufort County civil court, documents allege Tribble bypassed the facility’s passcode-activated doors by following a contracted construction employee outside. The filing says multiple people, including nursing staff, saw the man leaving the building but failed to act until hours later.

Legal filing casts a wide net

In addition to The Palmettos, records for the forthcoming lawsuit name a number of defendants: National HealthCare Corporation (NHC), the billion-dollar conglomerate in charge; its subsidiary NHC/OP, L.P. and partners in Bluffton and Tennessee; The Palmettos’ executive director Heather Wiegand, director of nursing Ersha Henderson and nurse K’Lee S. Latham; as well as Hendrick Contracting and Home Design, Inc., a Tennessee-based business whose employees were doing repairs in the building at the time of Tribble’s disappearance.

Plaintiffs for the wrongful death case will be Tribble’s wife Margaret and his brother, who are represented by a Columbia attorney with a focus in medical malpractice.

NHC’s partners directed inquiries to the company’s corporate headquarters in Murfreesboro, TN, which did not respond by deadline via email. Other defendants, including Hendrick Contracting and multiple staff members at The Palmettos of Bluffton, could not be reached.

Wiegand, the facility’s executive director, said on Tuesday afternoon she could not comment due to the pending litigation.

How did he slip by?

Tribble was admitted to The Palmettos in February 2022, some time after his dementia diagnosis. His family, including his wife Margaret, could no longer care for him by themselves due to his confusion and “strong desire to wander,” the court filing says.

Relatives claim they repeatedly warned nursing staff of these dangers. An assessment completed a week after Tribble’s arrival noted the patient was independently mobile, had a history of wandering and “exhibited a desire to leave the facility.”

Family members gave staff at The Palmettos a GizmoWatch 2, a smartwatch with cell service that would allow relatives to keep in contact with Tribble and track the man’s location. The patient’s treatment sheet advised nurses to ensure he wore the watch daily, according to the pre-suit.

In August 2022, employees from the Hendrick contracting company began repair work at The Palmettos. Documents say the nursing staff gave the facility’s passcode to the construction crews.

One of those crew members used the code to unlock an exit around 5:43 p.m. on Aug. 23, the filing says. Tribble followed behind him through two doorways and into the parking lot, being captured on outdoor surveillance video as he walked toward the roadway.

Later investigation by the Bluffton Police Department revealed that worker and two Palmettos employees “personally witnessed Mr. Tribble outside of the facility,” the documents allege, but none of those three people alerted management or attempted to redirect Tribble back inside.

The 79-year-old patient then began walking alongside the bustling Highway 170 — and was reportedly seen by another staff member on his way home from work. Bluffton police later interviewed the employee, who said he messaged his supervisor about the supposed sighting once he was home.

But his supervisor did not act on that text, the filing says. Employees at the facility allegedly failed to notice Tribble was gone until 8:36 p.m., almost three hours after he walked out. They notified law enforcement at 8:48 p.m., according to public call logs from the Bluffton Police Department.

Court documents note Tribble was not wearing his GPS smartwatch at the time of his disappearance. After leaving The Palmettos’ parking lot, he was “never seen alive again.”

The search for Tribble in the following weeks involved on-foot search parties, helicopters, drones, ATVs and K-9 units. Police suspended their search efforts when officers had “saturated” the immediate area about six days after the initial call, according to previous reporting. A spokesperson for Bluffton police said bloodhounds lost the man’s scent at Okatie Highway’s intersection with Bufflehead Lane, about a half-mile south of The Palmettos.

Wandering is not uncommon

While indisputably tragic, the 79-year-old’s death was far from rare. A December investigation by the Washington Post — which highlights Tribble’s story — estimates more than 2,000 elderly patients wandered from assisted living homes nationwide between 2018 and 2023, resulting in nearly 100 deaths in the 40 states where records were provided.

The outlet’s investigation into assisted living facility standards also showed statewide regulations in South Carolina lag behind those of most other states. While Columbia’s state legislature is one of only a few nationwide that has mandated specific staffing ratios (current state law sets the minimum at nine personnel for every resident, with the number of required nurses increasing for evening and overnight shifts), S.C. health care workers are not required to complete a fixed amount of training hours, either annually or upon their hiring.