An update about the Charlotte NC nursing home where a resident went “missing” but was actually in a closet the whole time. She died.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — State nursing home regulators are taking steps to cut off Medicare and Medicaid payments, and fining a Charlotte nursing home $10,000 a day until problems are fixed.

This comes after a resident, Mary Hicks Cole, went missing from the Liberty Nursing and Rehab Center of Mecklenburg County in January and was found four days later in a storage closet at the facility.

According to documents obtained by Eyewitness News after a state investigation, it said “when asked about the missing resident, the nursing assistant stated, ‘We had to check every night’ because the staff on the unit could not understand what had happened to her.”

The report goes on to say a nursing assistant saw two people enter the unlocked closet the night before Cole went missing, but didn’t tell anyone.

The document stated, “She knew the storage room was supposed to be locked but did not tell anyone that night about the residents in the room or the room being locked.”

The document stated that the assistant eventually told someone, but couldn’t remember to whom she spoke.

The North Carolina Division of Facility Services is asking the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to deny reimbursement for new admissions effective Wednesday, Feb. 8, and terminate the facility’s Medicare and Medicaid programs effective on Feb. 23.

The daily fine would be effective starting Jan. 23, the date Cole went missing, and run until the conditions found in the home by surveyors from the state division’s Licensure and Certification Section are resolved. Surveyors reported that the home constitutes immediate jeopardy to the residents’ health and safety.

Nurse Gwendlyn Lucas said she still stands behind the nursing home.

“That would hurt the people tremendously because we do have a number of Medicare and Medicaid people and we do give quality nursing care,” she said.

Surveyors said the home was cited for failing to ensure that each resident receives adequate supervision and assistance devices to prevent accidents.

Officials passed on its recommendations to regional decision makers in Atlanta. They said the home is required to submit a plan to the state surveyors by Feb. 19 detailing how it will correct the problem.