Grandson sues Charlotte nursing home for dementia patient’s maggot-infested wound
A Charlotte nursing home that allowed a woman’s wound to become infested with maggots has already been cited by North Carolina’s health department. Now, her grandson is asking a judge to make the facility, its workers and its owners pay for alleged problems that led to the infested wound.
Bernice Mayes, an 81-year-old dementia patient, beat a COVID infection in early 2021. Four months later, she faced another battle: a “rampant maggot infestation,” according a lawsuit filed in Mecklenburg County Superior Court on Feb. 28.
After getting his grandmother to a hospital — something University Place Nursing and Rehabilitation Center allegedly declined to do after learning of the bug-ridden heel wound — Justin Waddell submitted a complaint to the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services. University Place and its owners were “severely sanctioned monetarily” and forced to take “corrective action.”
More than three years after Mayes’ death — which was unrelated to the wound — Waddell is asking for more.
He alleges, among other things, that University Place, owned by Granite Falls LLC, “failed and refused to take the most basic steps with regard to cleanliness and sanitation” and failed to “adhere to the Patients ‘Bill of Rights.’”
University Place’s facility administrator said in an email to The Charlotte Observer that “the health and wellbeing of our residents is, and always has been, our top priority.”
“We immediately reviewed the matter to address the concerns,” Tou Lor wrote in the email. “It is important to remember that this matter occurred during the unprecedented time of the COVID-19 pandemic when the provision of care was very challenging.”
Healthcare workers struggled to provide consistent care during the pandemic as hospitals and facilities became overwhelmed. But the lawsuit, filed by attorney Robert Zaytoun, alleges the nursing home’s services were not “impacted, or negatively affected by the COVID pandemic in any manner.”
The Charlotte Observer previously reported on how a nationwide struggle to hire and retain caregivers caused North Carolina nursing homes to reach a crisis point.
The trend endangers thousands of residents, and for-profit nursing homes and fewer regulations during the pandemic only compounded the crisis.
Charlotte nursing home: maggots found in NC grandma’s heel wound
Mayes had lived in University Place, a northeast Charlotte nursing home off Interstate 85, for about a year when she caught coronavirus and was transferred to a sister home specializing in Covid treatment. She returned to her home facility in April 2021 with bed sores on her heel — something she’d never experienced before.
By August 2021, “maggots had fallen out of the bandages on her right foot onto the bedding,” according to nurses who spoke with Mayes’ grandson and the state health department, the lawsuit says.
There were 50 to 100 maggots, one nurse reportedly told the health department.
The nursing home’s medical director, without seeing the wound for himself, “ordered that the wound be cleaned with equal parts vinegar and water,” the lawsuit alleges.
When paramedics responded to an anonymous call, the director allegedly declined to let them take Mayes to the hospital.
The next day, he reportedly wrote in a report that a “few maggots” were found in Mayes’ wound.
He “spoliated evidence from the medical records” by “excluding reference to the severe maggot infestation in Bernice Mayes’ open sore wound,” the lawsuit argues.
Meanwhile, two nurses had called and messaged Mayes’ grandson in Virginia, Waddell, and told him to check on Mayes.
Then they sent him a video of the wound.
Waddell saw those messages the day after nurses found the maggots. He called the nursing home and demanded that his grandmother be taken to the hospital immediately.
University Place employees told paramedics that “the open sore wound had been treated and that Ms. Mayes should be evaluated for the possibility of infection,” according to a treatment administration report referenced in the lawsuit.
Waddell submitted a complaint to the health department after transferring Mayes to a different facility. University Place and its owners were fined and expected to correct conditions that allowed flies to get into the building and lay eggs.
Now, Waddell is asking for a trial by jury and compensatory damages.
This story was originally published March 6, 2025 at 8:23 AM.
