Man found dead three days after wandering from health care facility

By Karin Grunden
The Tribune-Star

February 14, 2006 12:10 am

— Searchers found the body of a missing Indiana man in a creek Monday, three days after he wandered from a nearby Rockville health care facility, authorities said.
Robert E. Didelot, 62, was discovered just west of Lee Alan Bryant Health Care Facilities Inc., where he lived, said Parke County Sheriff Charles Bollinger. The facility, which includes a nursing home and residential facility, is about 2 1/2 miles east of Rockville.
“It appears [he] was trying to cross a log jam and fell off into the water,” near Sanatorium Bridge, Bollinger said. Didelot was up to his neck in water, the sheriff said.
An autopsy is scheduled today in Terre Haute Regional Hospital.
Staff at Lee Allen Bryant reported Didelot missing Friday evening, several hours after they initially could not find him. A staff member contacted police after a search of the building and immediate grounds, the sheriff said.
Deputies and volunteer firefighters from Rockville and Bellmore, plagued by foggy conditions, scoured the area into the early hours Friday. Searchers returned Saturday and Sunday, but turned up no sign of Didelot. Temperatures dipped into the mid-20s over the weekend.
“I just had a bad feeling about it,” Bollinger said. “We didn’t expect to find him out there alive.”
Bridgeton firefighters and Indiana State Police joined the search Monday, with a helicopter hovering overhead, Bollinger said.
At the end of the search, authorities spotted Didelot’s body amidst logs in the creek. He was clothed in a sweater, long sleeve shirt and pants, but had no shoes on, the sheriff said. He was not wearing his glasses, which he needed to see.
Didelot is the fourth person from the facility since 2002 to have wandered away and died.
Last March, Severina Spivey, 23, of Merrillville was found dead near Raccoon Lake, about five miles from the facility. She had been reported missing about a month before fishermen discovered her body.
The death of Derrick Rolewicz, 30, was ruled a suicide after he was found less than a quarter mile from the facility in April 2002.
Myrtle Nordholt, 71, died as result of exposure after wandering from the facility in January 2002.
The Indiana Department of Health announced in May 2002 that it planned to place Lee Alan Bryant on probation.
Melissa Marshall, Lee Alan Bryant administrator, said she could not adequately express the tragedy of the situation Monday. However, she believes there’s nothing more that could have been done to prevent Didelot’s death.
“When they walk away, there’s not a lot we can do,” she said.
The residential portion of the facility, which houses patients with mental illness and substance abuse problems, allows people to come and go as they please, she said. Residents are supposed to sign out before leaving the grounds.
When they turn up missing, “we have policies in place and we follow policy,” Marshall said. “When we first found out that Mr. Didelot had left, we did procedure. We searched the building. They searched again. They searched the grounds.”
Marshall said she called the Sheriff’s Department, first to check on whether anyone had been reported wandering along the road, and later to report Didelot missing.
Bollinger, however, believes Lee Alan Bryant officials need to do more — such as adding surveillance cameras to the exterior of the residential buildings.
“They don’t have a proper procedure to keep track of these patients,” he said.
Karin Grunden can be reached at (812) 231-4257 or karin.grunden@tribstar.com.