Health aide charged in elderly abuse incident at CT family care center

A health aide faces charges in connection with an elderly abuse incident in Norwalk involving a man who fell out of his bed and was left helplessly injured.

Lydia Lungile, 40, of Park Avenue in Newark, New Jersey was arrested Wednesday on charges of first-degree reckless endangerment and cruelty to persons, according to Lt. Tomasz Podgorski of the Norwalk Police Department.

The charges stem from an incident in November 2023 at the Fairfield Family Care Center in Norwalk that was investigated by the police department’s Special Victims Unit, Podgorski said in a statement.

According to Podgorski, detectives found that an elderly man fell out of his bed in the overnight hours and was left unattended and injured. Upon collecting evidence and interviewing witnesses, Podgorski said investigators were able to determine that Lungile was the aide in charge of the man and that she “ignored” him.

Lungile was charged after detectives obtained a warrant for her arrest.

Detectives with the Special Victims Unit worked with a Norwalk police officer assigned to the U.S. Marshals Service Violent Fugitive Task Force to locate and apprehend Lungile. She was arrested Wednesday in Orange.

Podgorski said Lungile’s bond was $125,000 and that she is scheduled to face a judge on June 5.

According to a spokesperson for the Fairfield Family Care Center, Lungile had recently been hired at the time of the incident and was “terminated directly after.”

“We take these inquiries very seriously and do not stand for that,” the spokesperson said. “From what I understand she was suffering from allergies and took an allergy pill that made her drowsy and did not respond to the incident immediately.”