Effingham Healthcare: Lift Collapse Injured Resident - IL
The incident happened on November 26, 2025, at Effingham Healthcare & Senior Living. Two staff members, a licensed practical nurse and a certified nursing assistant, were moving the resident from a shower chair to her bed. As the lift was being pushed toward the bed, it became unbalanced while the resident was still elevated. The lift fell. She landed on her bottom. The equipment struck the left side of her head.
She weighed 437 pounds.
An emergency room physician repaired the wound that evening, a 2.5-centimeter laceration to the left parietal scalp, using two staples. She returned to the facility by ambulance the same night with orders to have the staples removed in seven days.
The facility's own incident report confirmed the sequence: the lift became unbalanced with the resident still elevated in the sling, she fell, and she was sent to the local emergency room for evaluation and treatment.
The Director of Nursing told inspectors she had been working the day it happened. She said she was notified by two staff members that the transfer had gone wrong and that the lift had tipped with the resident elevated. Her explanation for what caused the collapse matched what the administrator and a physical therapy assistant each said separately: the resident's weight shifted outside the base center of the lift during repositioning and motion, and the lift tipped.
The physical therapy assistant was direct about the mechanics. A lift can tip, she said, if a resident's weight becomes unbalanced outside the base center during transfer.
The administrator described the same sequence when she spoke with inspectors on December 23. She said she had been notified that the two staff members were in the process of transferring the resident from a shower chair to her bed when the lift tipped over with the resident elevated in the sling, causing the lift to hit the top left side of the resident's head.
The facility's own mechanical lift policy, though undated, instructs staff to gently support the resident during movement but explicitly states not to support any weight.
A Quality Assurance and Performance Improvement meeting was held on December 1, five days after the incident, attended by the administrator, the Director of Nursing, the staff LPN who had been present during the transfer, a regional director, and a minimum data set coordinator. Following that meeting, the Director of Nursing and the assistant director of nursing conducted in-service training for nursing staff on mechanical lift safety and safe transfers, with return demonstrations required. The session was completed December 1.
The facility also checked and confirmed that all beds were locked, and identified all residents transferred by mechanical lift as potentially affected by the same deficient practice.
The Director of Nursing committed to observing three lift transfers per week for six weeks. If concerns arise during any observed transfer, she said she would intervene immediately and provide additional education with return demonstrations.
Federal inspectors conducting a complaint survey on December 23 and 24 reviewed the incident and cited the facility for causing actual harm to the resident.
The hospital summary from November 26 documented the mechanism plainly: the mechanical lift flipped over, the patient landed on her bottom, and the mechanical lift struck her in the left side of the head.
She came back that night in an ambulance, with staples in her scalp.
Full Inspection Report
The details above represent a summary of key findings. View the complete inspection report for Effingham Healthcare & Senior Living from 2025-12-24 including all violations, facility responses, and corrective action plans.
Additional Resources
Data source: This article is based on inspection data downloaded directly from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) via Medicare.gov. CMS releases inspection reports in bulk; we publish the findings as documented by state surveyors in the official Form CMS-2567 Statement of Deficiencies.
Plan of correction: The CMS report we receive does not include the facility's plan of correction. Facilities submit plans of correction separately to state survey agencies and those responses may not be reflected in CMS data at the time of publication. The absence of a plan of correction in our data does not mean one was not filed. Readers who want information about corrective steps taken are encouraged to contact the facility directly or their state survey agency.
Corrections may have occurred: Inspection reports reflect conditions observed on the date of the survey. Facilities may have implemented corrections, staffing changes, additional training, or other remediation since the report was issued. We report what CMS provides and encourage readers to seek current information from the facility.
Editorial process: Inspection findings are extracted from CMS source documents and synthesized using AI, reviewed for factual accuracy against the original report by our editorial team.
Professional review: All content reviewed by Christopher F. Nesbitt, Sr., NH EMT & BU-trained Paralegal.
Last verified: August 19, 2026 · Our methodology
EFFINGHAM HEALTHCARE & SENIOR LIVING in EFFINGHAM, IL was cited for violations during a health inspection on December 24, 2025.
The incident happened on November 26, 2025, at Effingham Healthcare & Senior Living.
Health inspections identify deficiencies that facilities must correct. Violations range from minor documentation issues to serious safety concerns. Review the full report below for specific details and facility response.