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WINTER HAVEN , Fla., Oct. 31 (UPI) -- Two nursing home employees have been charged with battery of a person over 65 and are being held without bond Friday after a nanny cam captured footage of the women abusing an elderly patient with Alzheimer's. After noticing bruises on his 76-year-old father, Dale Wilson, afraid his dad was being mistreated, decided to set up a hidden camera in his father's room at Palm Gardens Nursing Home.
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Because he's in the advanced stages of Alzheimer's, Wilson's father is non-communicative and unable to report the cause of the bruising. Wilson's solution was a nanny cam pointed at the septuagenarian's bed.
The resulting video shows employees beating the elderly man, slapping and kicking him, restraining him, taunting him by making punching motions toward his face in an effort to antagonize him. They stomp on his bare feet, lunge at him to agitate him further, hold him down by the wrists and ankles, and make him punch himself in the face with his own hands.
"They're taunting they're trying to get a reaction. It's obvious that they're trying to get a reaction," Winter Haven Police Chief Charlie Bird says of the footage. "At one point one of them actually kicked him and he did sustain an injury from that."
"It's pretty disturbing. Just really can't believe someone would treat an elderly ... you know in his condition that way," said Wilson.
"We trusted them to take care of him," Wilson's unidentified female companion told WFLA.
"This egregious behavior from these two who are supposed to be caring for our infirm is absolutely sickening," Bird said.
"There is absolutely no reason for any person, especially an elderly Alzheimer patient, to be treating like this and today those two workers are paying for their actions," he added.
"Upon the completion of this investigation and the satisfaction of all legal and law enforcement issues, we will determine and enact any necessary changes to prevent such actions from ever occurring again," Jeff Bomberger, COO of Palm Healthcare Management, said in a statement.
According to Bomberger, six employees have been suspended without pay and are under investigation for abuse by the Winter Haven Police Department and the Department of Children and Families (DCF).
He added that at Palm Healthcare Management they "take very seriously patient care and safety and are cooperating with DCF and local law enforcement."
Wilson said his reaction on seeing the video was "a lot of sadness for my dad and a lot of anger for the people that were inflicting the damage to him."
Even though his father is in the late stages of a degenerative neurological disorder that prevents him speaking back, Wilson apologized to his dad.
"I did tell him that I am so sorry for what he had to endure here. I said I had no idea what was happening to you. I said, I know there were people in here being mean to you, they can't be mean to you anymore, they're gone, I promise."
