Terrace View Long Term Care: Resident Slapped by Aide - NY
The incident happened on December 8, 2025, at Terrace View Long Term Care Facility. Federal inspectors documented the altercation and the facility's response following a complaint inspection that concluded December 31. The violation was cited at the level of actual harm.
At around 9:00 that evening, Resident #1 slid out of their recliner. Thirty minutes later, the resident reached up and grabbed the handle on the side of the chair. Certified Nurse Aide #1 walked over and bent down to remove the resident's hand from the handle. The resident punched the aide in the face. The aide slapped the resident on the left cheek and told them, in words the inspection report renders only as "expletive," not to put their hands on her again. Then she left the unit.
Certified Nurse Aide #2, who witnessed the sequence, was direct about it when inspectors reached them by phone on December 30. Resident #1 could get aggressive, they said. But Certified Nurse Aide #1 should not have hit the resident back. "Resident #1 was here to be cared for," they told inspectors, "not to be verbally and physically abused."
A registered nurse in the hallway heard a pop. Registered Nurse #1 came over and told them that Certified Nurse Aide #1 had just smacked Resident #1 in the face. Registered Nurse #1 called the nursing supervisor to report it. The supervisor's response: Certified Nurse Aide #1 had already self-reported the incident.
Registered Nurse #3 told inspectors that the aide should have de-escalated the situation and come back to the resident later, instead of reacting the way she did.
That part, at least, was not in dispute. Every person inspectors interviewed agreed the aide behaved wrongly. What fractured along seniority lines was whether the red mark left on the resident's face constituted harm, and whether the facility had any obligation to treat it as such.
The physician assistant who examined Resident #1 the following day, December 9, said the incident left a quarter-sized red mark on the resident's cheek. They told inspectors there was "no appreciable injury," which they defined as a tangible, real harm more than minor or speculative. If there had been, they said, they would have documented it.
Then they said something that cut against their own conclusion: "Any reddened area that resulted from an altercation would be considered an injury and would be harm regardless of the duration."
The medical director told inspectors there was "no bruising, no pain, therefore was not harm." The aide's reaction, they said, was wrong and inappropriate. But the harm question, in their view, was settled by the absence of a bruise.
The interim director of nursing went further. There was, she told inspectors, "no way to determine if the redness was caused from a fall or flailing around in the recliner." It was hard to say whether the red mark came from the slap. The area did not develop into a bruise and resolved quickly. Not harmful.
The interim administrator offered the clearest threshold. If a finger or handprint had been visible on the resident's skin, they said, then they would consider the injury harmful. The redness resolved quickly, and they were not certain whether it came from the slap or was self-inflicted.
They did, however, agree that the aide swearing at the resident was verbal abuse and unacceptable. Certified Nurse Aide #1, they said, should have been aware of her own triggers and had a coworker step in if she was feeling aggravated.
The social worker who monitored Resident #1 after the incident said the resident showed no negative impact. Staff, they told inspectors, should not be cursing at residents or putting their hands on them.
What the inspection record shows is a facility where a resident was struck by a staff member, left with visible redness on their face, and then became the subject of an institutional debate about whether that redness was real enough to matter. The medical director said no bruise meant no harm. The interim director of nursing suggested the resident might have made the mark themselves. The interim administrator set the bar at visible fingerprints.
The physician assistant, in the same breath as declaring no appreciable injury, acknowledged that a reddened area from an altercation is harm regardless of how long it lasts.
Federal inspectors were not persuaded by the facility's reasoning. The violation was cited at the level of actual harm, meaning inspectors determined that real injury, physical or otherwise, had occurred. The citation covers both the physical act, the slap, and the verbal abuse, the profane command delivered to a resident who had just been struck.
Resident #1's history of agitation was known. The inspection report notes that the resident could get aggressive. That history does not appear anywhere in the facility's internal reasoning as a factor that should have triggered a different staffing approach or prompted a coworker to step in before the situation reached the point of a physical exchange. It surfaced mainly as context for why the aide reacted the way she did.
Certified Nurse Aide #2, the witness, did not offer that framing. The resident's behavior explained the sequence. It did not, in their telling, change what the aide did or what it meant. The resident was there to be cared for. That was the whole of the argument.
After the altercation, Certified Nurse Aide #1 walked off the unit. She self-reported to the nursing supervisor before the supervisor was formally notified through the chain of command. Registered Nurse #1 made the call up the ladder. The supervisor, already briefed by the aide, passed that information back down.
What happened to Certified Nurse Aide #1 after that night is not recorded in the inspection report. What is recorded is that three weeks later, facility leadership was still offering competing explanations for whether a quarter-sized red mark on a resident's face, left there after a staff member struck them, was something the facility needed to take seriously.
The resident was monitored every shift, the social worker said. No negative impact was observed.
The mark, everyone agreed, resolved quickly.
Full Inspection Report
The details above represent a summary of key findings. View the complete inspection report for Terrace View Long Term Care Facility from 2025-12-31 including all violations, facility responses, and corrective action plans.
Download the official CMS inspection PDF from Medicare.gov
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: September 20, 2026 · Our methodology
Terrace View Long Term Care Facility in Buffalo, NY was cited for violations during a health inspection on December 31, 2025.
The incident happened on December 8, 2025, at Terrace View Long Term Care Facility.
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.