Bluffton care home settles with family of patient who wandered from facility and died
Shortly before a civil trial was set to begin, a Bluffton care home and its parent company settled with the family of a dementia patient who wandered from the facility and died, according to the Beaufort County Clerk of Court’s office.
Jury selection was scheduled to begin Monday in the wrongful death lawsuit against The Palmettos of Bluffton and its parent company National Healthcare Corporation. The suit was filed by the family of Jack Tribble, whose body was found within walking distance of the assisted living facility nearly two weeks after he wandered out of its memory care unit in August 2023.
Details of the settlement were not immediately available, including via online court filings. Robert Rikard, whose Columbia-based personal injury law firm is representing the Tribble family, did not respond to a phone call requesting comment Monday afternoon.
Filed in Beaufort County civil court in 2024, the lawsuit alleges The Palmetto’s “negligent and substandard care” allowed Tribble, who had a known history of wandering, to pass through a keypad-locked entryway and walk out of the facility the evening of Aug. 23, 2023. He had Lewy body dementia, a progressive disease that leads to cognitive decline, visual hallucinations and movement issues similar to symptoms of Parkinson’s disease.
Twelve days later, and after an extensive search effort, Tribble was found dead in a swampy area about a half-mile from The Palmettos. An autopsy determined he died of acute bronchopneumonia caused by environmental exposure, according to court filings.
Tribble made it outside by following a contracting employee who had been given the passcode to the door, court documents claimed. The lawsuit alleges at least two employees at The Palmettos witnessed the patient outside the building but failed to intervene, and that it took facility staff three hours to notice Tribble had disappeared.
The Tennessee-based contracting company that was conducting repairs in The Palmettos that day was initially named in the lawsuit, along with the project’s foreman. But they were dropped as defendants earlier this month, Rikard previously said.
Patient had a ‘strong desire to wander’
Born and raised in the mountains of Colorado, Tribble was a father of two, a patent lawyer and an avid skier. He and his wife Margaret were married for 51 years, according to his obituary. The couple retired to Cape Cod and spent their winters on Hilton Head Island.
“We’re very worried ... (Jack) will be off his meds now completely,” Margaret Tribble said in a video posted four days after her husband’s disappearance, asking for the public’s help after police discontinued their search efforts. “At this stage, he’s probably somewhere feeling isolated, alone and very frightened.”
The search for Tribble near the intersection of S.C. 170 and Bluffton Parkway involved on-foot search parties, helicopters, drones, ATVs and a bloodhound team. The man’s body was found Sept. 6, 2023, in a swampy area less than a half-mile from The Palmettos, police said. A coroner’s report concluded he had died two days prior.
Court documents alleged staff at The Palmettos enabled Tribble’s death by wrongfully giving the security code to contracting employees, not conducting regular checks on patients and generally failing to implement sufficient safety measures in response to the 79-year-old’s “strong desire to wander.”
The filings included photos of the locked entryway that Tribble allegedly slipped through as he followed a contractor out of the memory care unit. A sign posted on the door included a reminder for those coming and going from the secure area: “Please check surroundings for residents and alert staff when leaving to ensure safety of residents.”
Representatives from The Palmettos and NHC — which operates the Bluffton care home and over 100 other facilities nationwide — did not immediately respond to questions sent over email Monday afternoon.
