He should never been discharged till some one was there its hospitals fault.policy should be no one leaves inless there is a ride escpially for older people.

If a person is resposible for driving a car from a rather distant town, and is capable of signing for care and discharge from a hospital, and is alert and oriented and understands the discharge instructions and signs out, then I would call this an unfortunate tragedy. But to try and lay blame on anyone is not fair. You best get all the information before you place judgement.

NURSEPAT 1 how rediculous!! Of course a confused person can still drive and many do--whether we think it is right or not, many families and medical professionals do not even think about that aspect when they are caring for a person. It is the hospital's responsibility to know if the person is confused or not, if they are vulnerable or not. Social workers are available in the hospital also to help arrange discharge. Hospital staff are to ASK questions, if you don't understand something ask, ask the family, ask the patient.......ask, ask, ask. If the patient was truely a vulnerable adult, someone should have made a different choice. I hope the nurse who discharged the person, the clerk who watched him leave and the person who opened the door, all can sleep fine knowing they sent the person out to their death.

Nursepat 1 sounds like a typical hospital nurse.

It's very sad what happens to the mind of some of our elderly. He clearly was not functioning as he wandered and went into the river. I can't imagine the fear and confusion he went through; who knows where/when he thought he was. Rest in Peace sir, may God bless and keep you, and may He grant your family peace during this time.

I'm sure both the discharge staff at Essentia and the family member who was supposed to be there to pick him up feel terrible already. They will have to live with the "If I had waited there with him," or the "If I had only been there to pick him up earlier," for the rest of their lives. This was a tragic accident and sometimes it is no one's fault.

And if it had not happened as it did, who is to say that he wouldn't have been delivered back to his vehicle and taken off then?

there are voluntary attendants that used to work the door. I wouldn't be surprised if the still have voluntary help but I'm guessing management has shifted their scope of work from greeters and doormen to running carts and errand work that used to be done by paid personnel.

What I do know, is this place is management heavy and bloated at the upper levels and spend a large amount of time sending memos and having meetings about getting more production from the rank & file.

If the managers actually rolled up their sleeves and pitched in, not only would they make it a better place for healing and working, but they'd finally get a clue what the hourly staff do.

This is just terrible. Prayers and thoughts to the family. I thought the police and fire dept. checked this area right away. If they did they didn't look too hard. Instead I was asked by a Brainerd police officer who showed me a picture while he was sitting at a local gas station about three miles away. I hope they look into this a little further, I would have looked harder than they did if my dog disappeared. Very upsetting and leaves you wishing more was done.

After reading all of the above comments I had to speak up....I was there. I was there when the family was notified that clothing had been found. I was there when the family was told that a body was seen in river. And I was there when a family member was forced to identify their loved one. No one can understand the raw emotion in these tragic situations unless you are forced to live it. This gentlemans family is from the cities, some of them were my neighbors growing up, now being a Brainerd "local", I went to help. The gentleman a decorated war vet had been traveling when he became ill in Pillager. He was found lying in a parking lot and transported to St. Josephs Hosiptal where he was treated for dehydration and released. Up until this time any health issues he had were handled by medication, apparently something catastrophic happened. Until this time he was a very "with it" and fit man, so questions on his being able to drive are not even up for debate. It was a sudden onset medical issue. As for the clothing found, it appeared that the clothing found was something he had been given by a homeless person living n the area, someone trying to help him. His confusion and what happened between when he was release and when he passed away will not be resolved until the autopsy is complete. Until that happens, the only thing a person can do is send sympathy to this family. and thank the gentleman who drove in from North Dakota with his blood hounds to help bring closure to sad situation.

Please don't comment on this unless you know all of the facts. Everybody has to jump immediately to who is to blame. If somebody did something wrong, I'm sure their life is changed forever also. They don't need somebody saying that now that they work for a corporation they don't care about their patients anymore. I'm sure everybody feels terrible about what this man had to go through and what his family is going through. My condolences to this family.

Yes it does not sit real well when you read those comments !!! Seems really out of touch and insensitive to me anyway.

I would have just given condolences- right on the spot. Only mine is sincere. Not followed up with any public relations blah blah blah.........
I've had 2 personal bad experiences with them since they merged with Essentia. They still have not made changes- even thought they said they would. I am nothing but a number to the executives.

When did it become acceptable reporting to just print a few lines from a police report or commitee meeting or whatever and not take a bit of time to look into things?
The printed story from the dispatch left many unanswered questions. Questions that were easily answered by navymom1 and could have been "investigated" by the reporter. The sway of comments would have been significantly different.

Thank You, all of you who are trying to understand the familys perpective on this. It was simply a sad situation. My comments were not meant to cast a bad light on the Brainerd Dispatch reporting staff. Please understand that a newspaper is the one of the only products in the world that literally changes everyday. They can only report on the facts that they are given by appropriate sources by a deadline set to make that newspaper hit your door step each morning. The reporting staff at the newspaper has one of the hardest jobs around, they have to print the facts...God bless them for getting Mr. Paquins name and face out on Tuesday afternoon. I recieved my update via FB which means that the online reporting staff was on the ball!!! Great work DN and staff. After talking briefly with a family member yesterday, I have learned that it appears Mr. Paquin had only been in the water for 24 hours give or take.....So where was I, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, not doing anything more important than getting out there and looking for this man, yet I did not arrive until Saturday. I can't help but wonder if "we" as a community had better policies in place for rallying our community to get out and look, would this have had a different outcome. I guess we will never know...God bless the nurses, the doctors and the staff at every hospital, you touch the lives of so many people. For evey ONE sad story, you all have twice as many great stories to tell! I can honestly say the staff at St. Joes, saved my daughters life once and once after Essentia took over, so THANK YOU!