NJ nursing home workers charged after pepper-spraying 87-year-old

🚨An 87-year-old man damaged a nursing station at a senior care center

🚨Video showed a nurse sprayed the man with pepper spray 'at close range'

🚨The man did not receive medical attention for another 45 minutes

MANCHESTER — Three employees at an Ocean County nursing center face charges after pepper spray was used on an 87-year-old man.

Manchester police said Lisa Erikson, 58, a nurse at the Whiting Gardens Rehabilitation and Nursing Center, told officers she used her personal pepper spray to defuse the situation on March 19. She said the man was brought to his room to await for police.

Video captured the man calmly walking down a hall after the attack. Erikson walked up behind the man and sprayed his face at close range twice, causing him to fall down.

Police said the video showed the man unattended for several minutes before Joshua Benner, a certified nursing assistant, and Erickson "forcibly" brought the man to his room.

He was left alone in his room without any medical attention for 45 minutes, police said. He was brought to Community Medical Center in Toms River to be checked over.

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Three nurses charged

Erickson was charged with aggravated assault, possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose and abandonment or neglect of an elderly person or disabled adult. She was held at the Ocean County Jail on April 11.

Warrants were issued for Benner, 34, and Celia Anetz-Sanzari, 58, of Manchester, both charged with abandonment or neglect of an elderly person or disabled adult.

Whiting Garden is a 200-bed facility off Route 70. It has had five statements of deficiencies following inspections between 2015 and 2024, four of them last year, according to the state Department of Health. The website does not disclose the nature of the issue cited. Its overall rating is "below average," with two out of five stars on the medicare.com website.

The facility did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment on April 15.

Ocean County has the highest population in New Jersey of residents over the age of 65.

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