Owatonna nursing home found negligent in death

An Owatonna nursing home neglected an 84-year-old man who died while staying at the facility in July, according to a Minnesota Department of Health investigation.

The staff at the Owatonna Care Center forgot to administer the man's anti-anxiety medication for 10 days, the investigation found. When the staff finally did provide the medication, they administered 10 times the prescribed amount.

The man was found dead in his bed the following morning. Staff did not realize the error until two days after the man died.

Owatonna Care Center administrator Brenda Schrupp said the facility has taken steps to prevent future incidents.

"We re-educated all of the nursing staff; we investigated the staff that were involved in the incident that are no longer employed there," she said. "We changed our system for how we were counting narcotics so that it would be caught every shift when that's done, and all of that was done immediately."

Investigators were not able to determine whether the overdose caused the death.