By the late winter of 2014, James Dempsey had served in a world war, raised children, buried a wife and seen the best of his health behind him. As he prepared for a stay at a nursing home on the outskirts of Atlanta, the 89-year-old began to feel nervous.So his family hid a camera in his room at Northeast Atlanta Health and Rehabilitation, Dempsey’s son later told WSBTV. His father knew about it, he said, but the nurses didn’t.James Dempsey died in that room on Feb. 27, 2014, in front of the secret camera. What his family saw on the video made them sue the facility.Portions of the hidden video were aired this week by another news station, NBC 11Alive. The clips appear to show Dempsey gasping for air, begging for help and collapsing that morning while nurses barely attempt to revive him and at one point laugh over his bed.At 4:34 a.m. on the last day of his life, Dempsey threw one skinny leg over the edge of his hospital bed. He pressed a button to call a nurse and croaked three times to an empty room: “Help me, help me, help me.”A few seconds passed. “Help me. Help me. Help.”The only immediate answer was the soft blare of a TV.As seen in NBC’s video, a worker entered the room eight minutes after that call. The worker adjusted Dempsey’s bed and inspected some tubes around his neck, then turned off his call light and left him alone.In a deposition more than a year later, which the NBC station also aired, the video was shown to Wanda Nuckles, the nursing supervisor on duty that night.“Would you agree it appears as though he’s gasping for air?” the questioner asked Nuckles.“It looks like it,” she said quietly as she watched.“Is that an emergency situation, ma’am?”“Yep. Yes.”“How’s it make you feel to watch this ma’am?”“Sick.”Staff returned to the room nearly an hour later and found Dempsey unconscious, the NBC station report ...
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