CHARLESTON, SC — The family of a 90-year-old grandma in South Carolina who was eaten by an alligator after wandering out of her senior living home has hit the facility with a lawsuit in excess of $10,000.
Bonnie Walker’s granddaughter, Stephanie Walker Weaver, alleged in a wrongful-death suit filed on Monday that staff at the Brookdale Senior Living center in Charleston did not notice that her grandmother was missing for seven hours on July 27, 2016.
Shockingly, Weaver was the one who found her grandmothers’ remains in a pond behind the building while searching the area with relatives. Bonnie had suffered “multiple sharp and blunt force injuries” consistent with an alligator attack, according to The Post and Courier. At the time, officials confirmed that the case was the first time an alligator-related incident in the state had turned fatal.
Not surprisingly, Weaver “was shocked and horrified to find the remains of her grandmother’s body floating in the pond where it had been dismembered by an alligator,” according to the suit. She is seeking damages to be determined by a jury — but in excess of $10,000.
Weaver alleges that staff members failed to properly monitor her grandmother, who reportedly had a history of sleepwalking. The staff reportedly contacted Bonnie’s family members before they began searching for her.
The center’s owner, HBP Leaseco, and facility administrator Terri Robinson have also been named in her lawsuit, in addition to unnamed employees and businesses.
Weaver’s filing on Monday marks the third time Brookdale has been sued in the past several months, according to the Courier — and at least two of those lawsuits were reportedly wrongful deaths. One of them came from the estate of Phyllis Farthing. Her suit claimed that she “was allowed to suffer multiple falls and suffer from multiple injuries” that resulted in her death.
A personal-injury suit was filed in March on behalf of Thelma Brown, another resident who reportedly suffered injuries from falls.