It’s a little bit of a happy ending to an otherwise horrific story about a veteran being failed by so many people in the system.
By now you’ve heard about the worthless tool in Michigan who viciously punched out a 75-year-old veteran in a nursing home, while he lay in his bed. He lied about the incident, claiming the elderly man fell out of bed, and then posted the video online.
Jaden Hayden, 20, is facing assault charges for allegedly filming himself repeatedly punching Norman Bledsoe and stealing his credit cards. The alleged attack left the elderly man hospitalized with head injuries.
Hayden allegedly told staff at Westwood Rehabilitation Nursing Center that his roommate had fallen out of bed. But he was busted after posting video of his attack online — grabbing the attention of the president.
…He was charged Sunday with two counts of assault, larceny and two counts of stealing a financial transaction device, the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office said. He was arraigned later that day with his bond set at $300,000, the Detroit Free Press said. — NewYorkPost
How did the system fail Norman Bledsoe?
At the State level, it was having policies allowing any Coronoavirus-positive individual within a country mile of a nursing home, let alone sending an infectious patient there.
At another level, it was whoever decided it was a good idea to house a mentally unstable man with pending assault charges in with a vulnerable population.
Before the COVID-19 diagnosis, the accused was being held in a U of M hospital, reportedly because he was hearing voices. And some MENSA reject decided the best option for a 20-year-old mentally unstable person with a communicable disease and a history of violence was to put them in ‘quarantine’ with a defenseless 75-year-old veteran as a freaking roommate.
Unless your last name is ‘Cuomo’, what part of ‘quarantine’ and ‘isolation’ is so damned difficult to understand?
This situation is damning to all involved.
With any luck, one of the good things to come out of COVID will be a distrust of retirement homes as an option for sheltering our elderly. Pair that with the flexibility working from home (and digital school options) could offer families, and we might even see a resurgence of multi-generational families with grandad getting his own room, an inlaw suite, or similar options.
Bledsoe served in the Army.
Now that he is the one needing protection, he deserved far better from his country.
And Governor Whitmer needs to reverse her policy of sending infectious people into the most vulnerable population on the planet.
Roughly 1-in-6 of eighty-year-olds die if exposed to Coronavirus.
Roughly 1-in-12 of 70-year-olds die.
Roughly 1-in-20 of folks in their sixties die. And the risk keeps dropping off from there.
Getting angry about who is and isn’t wearing a mask in a photo op in a factory, but sending known lethal agents to run amok in retirement homes shows us just how badly she’s blown it.
