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Not clear how man reached rooftop

Police continue to scrutinize the sequence of events leading to a 90-year-old Alzheimer's patient's being found dead Tuesday on the roof of a nursing home.

By VANESSA DE LA TORRE and JOSE CARDENAS
Published August 31, 2006

CLEARWATER - Alzheimer's patient Leo Wood may have climbed to the roof of the Highland Terrace Retirement Center the same night he was reported missing from a neighboring nursing home.

But did he? That night, the door to the roof was unlocked. Police were still investigating.

"Maybe he could have gone up there on the 15th or the 16th," Clearwater police Sgt. Greg Stewart said Wednesday. "There's no answer to that question."

Wood, 90, disappeared from the Highland Pines Nursing Home on Aug. 15. In a bizarre turn, his body was found Tuesday morning atop the seven-story Highland Terrace.

The door to the roof was closed only with wire from July 27 to Aug. 16, said Sgt. Stewart.

It couldn't be locked because firefighters responding to a minor sofa-bed fire at Highland Terrace in July broke the lock to get access to the roof.

The lock was replaced sometime on Aug. 16. That day, a sheriff's helicopter flew over the roof at least once searching for the missing man. Highland Terrace employees also checked the roof Aug. 15, 16 and 17, Stewart said.

Highland Terrace has the same administrator as Highland Pines.

If Wood managed to climb to the roof Aug. 15, then no one saw him in the following days.

"It could be because they didn't do a good search; he was hiding under the air conditioning units," said Stewart. Or, he added: "It could be because he wasn't there."

On Wednesday, Wood's family was too upset to talk about what happened. His children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren had walked miles looking for him, along railroad tracks and creeks, back and forth, for two weeks.

He could barely walk; how far could he have gone?

They were still searching when word came Tuesday that his decomposed body was found. The door to the roof was locked when a maintenance worker found him at 11:30 a.m.

Among the mysteries now is how the 90-year-old made it up to the roof, if he was capable of climbing stairs. Stewart said it was possible Wood got to the top by using the building's elevator, and the stairwell some of the way.

The stairwell doors on every floor are always kept unlocked because the stairs serve as a fire escape.

In past interviews, Wood's family gave a portrait of a once strong and quick-minded man, but made extremely feeble by age and illness.

Wood who had suffered from Alzheimer's since 1989, had lost his sense of balance and only shuffled, relatives said. He couldn't swallow liquids; they had to be thickened. He couldn't read or write, and no longer remembered his name or the people who loved him.

"He was mischievous," said his daughter, Betty Aki. "Always a twinkle in his eye. I think that's what I miss most: That twinkle. Because the disease took that, too."

As a child, he was known as "a good little escape artist," Aki said. In adulthood, he became a commercial fisherman and exceptional swimmer, someone who wandered towards water, having grown up in a fishing village on Lake Erie.

He was also a master carpenter, general contractor and World War II veteran who everyone called Bud.

Wood was drafted into the Canadian army at age 25. He was in the invasion at Normandy, and told family members he was the only survivor in his first battalion.

He had two bullet streaks on his torso and felt blessed to be alive.

"He always said the Good Lord was with him, and protected him, and brought him home," Aki said.

Wood was an elder in the Community of Christ Church. His wife of 70 years, Nancy, was a Sunday school teacher, and she often relied on him to remember things. He could rattle off the names of people he met at church events years ago.

But over time, it got to where he would look at Nancy and not recognize her. He would ask her if his wife was dead.

Doctors told the family he suffered from late-stage Alzheimer's and had the mind of 4-year-old. Nancy Wood, who is 88, says she took care of him until it became too much.

Around 2003, Mr. Wood started to leave their Oldsmar home without anyone noticing. One day, Nancy had to walk a mile and a half to catch him. The next time he escaped, she drove. So then the family started locking the doors to the house. Then, he climbed out the front window.

"After that I had to lock the windows," Nancy Wood said.

The family put him in the Highland Pines Nursing Home in early 2005, said Aki, his daughter. Wood was previously at another facility, but he got violent. At Highland Pines, he liked the nurses, was medicated, and family felt he was safe there.

Wood wore an ankle monitor that was supposed to beep loudly whenever he left the building. Why no one heard or stopped him remains unanswered.

The state Agency for Health Care Administration, which oversees nursing homes, has opened an investigation. Aside from Wood, the agency's records so far indicate Highland Pines has not lost a patient over the past two years, said agency spokeswoman Cristal Cole.

Bill Pellan, director of investigations for the Pinellas-Pasco Medical Examiner's Office, said the investigation into the cause of Wood's death was pending and that it could be several weeks before the cause was determined.

This is not the first time tragedy has struck the Wood family. In 1947, Aki said her 3-year-old sister was outside, playing with puppies, when she accidentally stepped onto ice-covered water. The ice broke and she drowned.

Wood found her body.

[Last modified August 31, 2006, 00:54:47]