There are many questions left unanswered regarding the death of 43-year-old Paul Cady, who died Tuesday evening after falling or jumping from a sixth floor window at Maine Medical Center in Portland.
Mr. Cady's daughter believes her father was disoriented and trying to get home to his family when he fell.
"He wanted nothing more in the world than to come home with family, but with the extent of his brain injuries he needed more hospital time and rehab time before that could happen," Mirada Cady wrote in a post on a Gofundme page created to help with her father's medical expenses. Funds are now being raised to help with funeral costs for Mr. Cady, who was at Maine Medical Center receiving treatment for injuries he sustained in a motorcycle accident.
Portland police are investigating the circumstances that led to Mr. Cady's death, and the Maine Department of Health and Human Services' Division of Licensing and Regulatory Services will also investigate the incident. Maine HHS spokeswoman Samantha Edwards told the Portland Press Herald she didn't have details about the scope of the investigation.
Under the American Institute of Architects 2006 general guidelines, newly constructed hospitals in Maine aren't required to have operable windows in patient rooms. If the windows are operable, the guidelines state they should be restricted "to inhibit possible escape or suicide," according to the report. The standards only apply to older buildings if they are renovated after 2009 and the construction work exceeds $50,000.
Mr. Cady fell from the window in his room located in the hospital's Richards Tower, which was built in 1969. Although it is unclear when that tower was last updated, Maine Medical Center spokesman Clay Holtzman told the Herald that the installation of stops on operable windows in patient care areas was one of the standards reviewed when the hospital was last accredited in 2014.
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