Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, March 29, 1992                   TAG: 9203290183
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: VICTORIA RATCLIFF STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

WHY DIDN'T THEY WATCH HIM? DEPRESSED MAN'S SISTER ASKS

But at 10:30 p.m. on Nov. 21 - the night before she was supposed to visit - Craig got a telephone call from a doctor at the hospital.

Her brother had "walked away," the doctor said. And under state law, the family could not even file a missing person report for 24 hours.

Carl Otis McKenzie, 64, had been suffering from depression, his sister said Friday. He wanted to go to the VA hospital and voluntarily admitted himself, Craig said.

What Craig cannot understand is why hospital officials did not restrict his mobility for some period of time after they admitted him.

"We couldn't understand why he had privileges so soon. When you put somebody in for depression, you watch them," she said.

McKenzie's body was found Wednesday in a pine thicket on the hospital grounds.

Craig's husband and daughter drove to the VA hospital the morning after he was reported missing.

"They last saw him going to supper at 5 o'clock. A nurse says he was real jolly, and said, `I'm going to supper. I'll see you later,' " Craig said.

Craig assumes her brother was simply depressed and wandered off and died of exposure. But she's not sure. He had been examined by a doctor in Florida before he came to live with his sister in June, and the Craigs have been unable to find out if another medical condition also affected him.

"The doctor had told him something in Florida, but we can't find out what it was because of patient confidentiality." The family is wondering whether McKenzie had been told he had early symptoms of Alzheimer's disease.

Family members had been worried because McKenzie occasionally would put a kettle of water on the stove to boil and forget to turn it off. Or he would begin cooking something to eat and forget it was on the stove.

But his mind seemed fine otherwise, Craig said. "He wasn't delusioned or anything."

McKenzie had been depressed because he was unable to find a buyer for 5 1/2 acres in Florida that he had been trying to sell for some time.

When McKenzie retired from the weaving room at Fieldcrest Mills in Bassett in July 1989, he moved to Orange Springs, Fla., near Orlando, Craig said. He bought the land and a new trailer and decided to run a fishing camp.

After buying the land, McKenzie decided he didn't want to stay in Florida. "He just wanted to come back to good old Virginia. You get this red mud in you," she said.

After he moved in with his sister, he kept worrying about why his land wasn't selling.

"He was making payments there. He was just so depressed. He was trying to find an answer. He would wonder why it wasn't selling and say, `What am I going to do?' He was dwelling on it."

So, as a veteran of World War II, McKenzie decided to enter the VA hospital for help.

McKenzie's ex-wife died about seven years ago of cancer. He had six stepchildren but no children of his own.

He moved to Bassett about 20 years ago to be near his parents, who also had moved there, Craig said.

McKenzie, a native of Okeechobee, Fla., came from a family of seven children, Craig said. Their father is 90 and lives with a brother in North Carolina; and their mother, 84 and deaf since birth, lives in a trailer next-door to Craig.

Last week, Craig was at her mother's trailer and they saw on the television news that two bodies had been discovered at the VA hospital.

"Something just struck me like light," she said. She later told her mother, "Somebody's dead. There's a good possibility that could be Carl." Her mother broke down then, Craig said.

Even after the bodies were discovered, the families were not notified until Friday afternoon, she said.

"I was very bitter. Why did the news get it before we did?"

Craig said she has been unhappy with the treatment the family has received from VA officials since her brother was admitted.

Hospital workers were cold and unfriendly and acted like they wanted the family gone as soon as possible, she said. "I guess we're used to being pampered by our local hospital down here when someone goes in for treatment," she said.

Craig said she doesn't know if she's angry at hospital officials or simply hurt that the system works the way it does.

"Having to wait 24 hours to report a person missing is wrong."

But the best advice she can give VA employees in a similar situation is "when a person goes in that is depressed, watch them more closely."

Of McKenzie, she said: "He was just a special brother. We're going to miss him."

Keywords:
FATALITY