Resident Waterboarded By Nursing Home Employees

89-year-old dementia patient Anna Foley was living in a Georgia nursing home when she got into got into an argument with two of her caregivers, Cicely Reed and Jermeller Steed, over ice cream. According to the Huffington Post, the caregivers allegedly tortured Ms. Foley after the disagreement.

On November 17, a grand jury indicted both Reed and Steed on charges of false imprisonment and battering a patient. The two are accused of nursing home abuse. They allegedly held Ms. Foley down and sprayed water in her face to simulate drowning. A coworker reported the abuse to police.

The arrest warrant described the nursing home abuse as being very “similar to waterboarding.” Waterboarding is a controversial interrogation technique outlawed by President Obama in 2009 when he classified it as a form of torture. This kind of severe physical abuse, considered too extreme to use on our country's most dangerous enemies, was used on a defenseless 89-year-old dementia patient.

Neither Steed nor Reed still works at the facility where the abuse allegedly took place. It is unclear whether or not the facility created an environment that made it employees feel comfortable engaging in such activities or whether the family of Ms. Foley has hired a nursing home abuse lawyer to investigate this issue.