Buffy Pollock

After 28 years in community journalism, I always feel a sense of gratitude when somebody trusts me with a part of their story. As a mother of daughters, asking Bobbie Kolada’s daughter, Jessica, to retell the experience of losing her mother in such a horrific way, for me, was the hardest piece of our recent five-part series, ”The death of Bobbie Kolada.”

Kolada, 66, who died March 27 from injuries suffered at the east Medford group home where she worked as a direct support professional (caregiver), opened our eyes to an industry wrought with employee injuries, staffing shortages and overwhelmed, underpaid workers.

Kolada was injured Feb. 20. She suffered several crushed cervical vertebrae and a serious head injury, and was alone for up to three hours before her shift change arrived and called 911.

We learned about it April 7 when a community member called Rogue Valley Times editor David Smigelski and told us only that a woman working at a group home for the developmentally disabled, run by Partnerships in Community Living, had died after being injured on the job.

We later learned that Bobbie had been left alone with a nonverbal resident who had injured her a number of times before. A co-worker said the man’s behaviors, which he uses to communicate, had evolved in recent months from pinching and biting to pushing and shoving.

The group home owner billed Kolada’s injuries as accidental, which angered Bobbie’s family and friends.

Over a month-long period, we interviewed dozens of former and current employees of PCL, including caregivers, administrators and medical and behavioral professionals. Many of those interviewed were afraid to go on the record for fear of retaliation. Some stories we collected were too graphic to share, or provided overly specific details that might have identified the developmentally disabled man who was with Bobbie that final shift.

Truth be told, Bobbie’s story might have gone untold if not for three key events — The community member who called to tell us a caregiver had died at a PCL group home; Employee of the Month records posted on social media, which we cross-referenced against recent obituaries to discover Kolada’s name; and Bobbie’s daughter being willing to talk about some of the darkest moments of her life.

The day after the series began, more people began to come forward. One was an administrator at a group home in the Willamette Valley who told us she has a client who has caused well over 125 injuries to caregivers in fewer than three months, and she has been told the resident cannot be placed elsewhere.

Many similar stories have been offered via letters and phone calls to our newsroom.

We’ll continue to follow the investigation into Bobbie Kolada’s death wherever it leads, and we’ll dive deeper into the challenges faced by those in the caregiving industry around the state.

A candlelight vigil last weekend offered a chance for friends and colleagues of Bobbie to say goodbye and to share their hopes for change. Our hope is that this series will spark changes for both caregivers and residents.

Eleanor Roosevelt said, “It is better to light one small candle than to curse the darkness.”

We couldn’t agree more.