A certified nurse aide today pleaded guilty to manslaughter for causing her mother’s death through neglect, the state Attorney General’s office said.

A news release says Nena Lopez, 50, failed to provide basic geriatric care and failed to seek appropriate medical attention, either of which would have staved off the massive infection that killed her 79-year-old mother in 2006.
The state says Lopez took her mother to a hospital emergency room after her mother appeared to be suffering from respiratory distress. Hospital staff found Lopez’s mother had five substantial bedsores, three of which were so severe that the bones underlying the sores had begun to liquefy.
The medical examiner and geriatric care specialists said Lopez’s mother must have been lying in the same position for hours at a time over the course of many weeks for the sores to have progressed to that severity.