Man’s death in state group home missed for 11 hours despite required bed checks

A worker told him Christopher J. Kuhrt, who was developmentally disabled, was still sleeping and everything was fine, the family recalled.

A coroner and autopsy determined Kuhrt had choked to death on his vomit the night before, at approximately 11 p.m.

But even after the father’s phone call, more than 30 minutes would lapse before Kuhrt was found dead in his room with vomit on the walls.

Under Kuhrt’s care plan, the staff was supposed to conduct “signs of life” bed checks on him every 30 minutes to make sure he was breathing.

But one of the direct support assistants at the home operated by the New York State Office for People With Developmental Disabilities has admitted she did not conduct the checks.

Another assistant testified she conducted checks by looking in from the doorway of Kuhrt’s room, but she could not see his face and took no additional steps to determine if he was breathing.

A third assistant testified that it was a common practice at the state group home to falsify the bed check logs. When she brought that to the attention of supervisors, she said no action was taken and that other workers yelled at her for performing thorough checks.

Jennifer A. Kuhrt, an older sister of the deceased, said she was devastated when Cattaraugus County Coroner Howie T. VanRensselaer described to her his observations when he arrived at the group home in the late morning of Dec. 14, 2019.

“He said there was vomit on the walls. The workers at the house said that they performed CPR on my brother and the coroner said that that was ridiculous. That he had been gone for between 10 and 12 hours.

“The coroner said that the odor of putrefaction alone, the stench from his body starting to decompose, would have, you know, certainly prevented anyone from attempting CPR.

“He was very adamant to me…