Home health aide wraps dementia patient up like mummy

GARDEN CITY, Long Island (WABC) -- A woman in Queens who hired a health care aide to take care of her mother was shocked to find out that the hired help was literally tying her mother up like a mummy.

Hidden cameras revealed the sick scene, as the victim, who has dementia, was wrapped up in a sheet. Now, police are looking for the aide.

Chantar Riviere said she trusted the aide, but instead she was betrayed.

"I was just very devastated," she said. "I was, 'Oh my God, my mom. My mom.' I was just, I called, 'Untie my mom. She's tied up. Untie my mom.'"

Images taken from a hidden camera Riviere says she set up inside her 69 year-old mother's Astoria apartment showed Yvonne Wilson wrapped up in bed sheets, apparently being used as a straight jacket.

Wilson, who is a pastor, is now terrified to be left home alone with anyone she doesn't know.

"My mom said, 'You don't know what they do to me. You're not here,'" Riviere said. "'They do things to me. They hit me. These things happen to me when you're gone. They're nice to me when you're there. When you're gone these things happen.'"

So Riviere set up the camera, and what she found left her both devastated and furious.

"She said to her, 'Nobody's going to believe you because you have dementia,'" Riviere said. "'Nobody's gonna believe you.'"

Riviere confronted the aide, who she says immediately fled.

The NYPD is investigating the incident, which occurred in February, but police have not been able to track down the suspect.

"We would like a thorough review of all the facts before coming to a judgement," an attorney for Continental Home Care, where the aide worked, said in a statement. "We take these allegations very seriously. We believe seeing the entire video will show what really happened."

The attorney added that Wilson had gone through 13 patients in a month because she was verbally abusive. But Riviere's attorney is not buying it.

"To try to blame it on a dementia victim is ridiculous," attorney Brett Leitner said. "You're professionals. You're supposed to be certified to provide this care."

Continental Home Care's attorney also says Wilson may have wrapped herself because she was cold, which Leitner also doubted.

"I don't think it's physically possible unless you're Houdini," he said.

Leitner said he learned late Friday afternoon that the aide is preparing to turn herself in to police after all the news coverage the allegations have received. The state Department of Health is also investigating the allegations.