Braintree Mother Blames Watertown Facility For Son's Death: Report

BRAINTREE, MA - A Braintree mother accused a Watertown facility of being responsible for her paralyzed son's death after neglecting to answer 11 calls to the nurse's station when he died on New Year's Day.

According to an I-Team investigation by CBS Boston broadcast Monday night, Marie Shadduck said that, by the time the staff at Vero Health & Rehab of Watertown, used her son Jack's phone to call 911, he was already dead.

"Ultimately I think that he suffocated," Marie said in the broadcast, noting that Jack's phone showed 11 calls to the nurse's station that day.

"They never came," she said.

Jack's obituary noted that Jack, 33, was paralyzed at age 13 by a rare neurological condition called transverse myelitis. Inflammation of the spinal cord can lead to paralysis, and, in Jack's case, quadriplegia.

His mother said that he "used his sense of humor" to counter the challenges of his condition. He began to perform in local comedy shows, including a Braintree event in 2019.

An athlete before his injury, Jack was the team captain for the Jackhammers, a wiffleball team in support of the Travis Roy Foundation for spinal cord injuries, his obituary noted. Roy, who died at age 45, was a hockey player at Boston University who was paralyzed from an injury in his first shift on the team.

Last December, Jack was scheduled to move into a residential facility, but he suffered a complication and was hospitalized at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. When he recovered, his placement was not yet ready. His mother said the hospital transferred him to Vero against his will to the 163-bed facility, and she holds the hospital partially to blame for his death.

The I-Team report cited a previous I-Team investigation in February 2021. It showed that between 2019 and 2020, there were 272 calls to 911 from the home - some made by the residents themselves.

The facility previously had poor ratings in a survey of nursing homes and rehabilitation facilities. It scored below average in rehabilitative care and average for long-term care in that report.

Marie said she had seen the previous I-Team report and was concerned about her son's safety. When they arrived, she took pictures of "filthy conditions" in his room, where belongings from a previous resident had been left behind.

Because he was paralyzed, Jack used Siri to call the nurse's station and text his mother. In one of his last messages, his mother shared what he wrote: "I don't know how long I'm gonna survive this place."

Marie said the nurse's station failed to answer Jack's calls until it was too late to save him.

"No doubt if he had not been in that place he would still be alive," she said.

A Propublica report from June 2018 to March 2022 showed 72 total deficiencies and $259,000 leveraged in fines against Vero.

Vero could not be reached for comment.