She modeled in New York and worked for the Navy. At 93, parasites ate her alive at a nursing home.

[mountaineer]

She modeled in New York and worked for the Navy. At 93, parasites ate her alive at a nursing home.
by Kristine Phillips / The Washington Post

Pictures of Rebecca Zeni during her younger years showed her with flawless skin, well-defined eyebrows and long, thick lashes. Her hair, parted in the middle, was neatly tied with a bow behind her ear. Her beauty could capture a room, her daughter said, but she was more than just a beautiful face.

She was a modern-day woman of the 1940s and 1950s, headstrong, career-oriented and hard-working  ...

"Her life just became exciting," Puryear said. "She thought in her mind that everybody's life is just like this."

But the once-vibrant woman later found herself living in a nursing home, where she suffered a long, painful death, her family's attorneys said. Parasitic mites had burrowed under her skin, living and laying eggs all over her body. By the time she died, vesicles and thick crusts had formed on her skin. Her right hand had turned nearly black, and Prieto said her fingers were about to fall off.

The scabies that infected Zeni's body had become so severe that bacteria seeped into her bloodstream. She died in 2015 at age 93.

Zeni's death is now the subject of a lawsuit filed against PruittHealth, a for-profit company that owns dozens of nursing homes, including Shepherd Hills in LaFayette, Georgia, where Zeni lived for five years until she died.  ...  WashPost via Daily Progress, Charlottesvile, VA newspaper

[Victoria33]

@mountaineer

The family did nothing until she died?  Can you say, "Take her to a doctor?"

[RoosGirl]

So, the family didn't care/notice until she died and now want to cash in on it.

[mountaineer]

The family did nothing until she died?  Can you say, "Take her to a doctor?"

When my father was in a nursing home (for the last six months of his life), my mother was there every day, making sure the staff took proper care. It's a sad commentary that this woman got in such bad shape and no one did anything.