Mother wants answers about son's injuries at Woodbine residential facility

WOODBINE — Cynthia J. Allen does not know how her son, Nicholas Aquilino, received a series of injuries while in the care of a state residential facility.

There were 245 injuries over 17 months, she said, averaging about one every other day, ranging from minor bruises to a broken finger to a broken nose, said Allen, of Middle Township.

Officials with the state department overseeing her son’s facility said they cannot address specific cases to the media but stressed that all complaints are thoroughly investigated.

Aquilino, 33, has lived at the Woodbine Developmental Center since 2010. He is severely autistic and completely nonverbal.

“He doesn’t talk at all. He doesn’t have any other alternative communication,” Allen said. “People have worked for years trying to get him to use picture books or stuff like that. His real method of communication is behavior.”

That has left Allen to ask officials at the developmental center about the injuries. Although she has obtained extensive documentation of investigations into Aquilino’s injuries, she is not satisfied with the answers she has received so far, and in one case believes someone at the center lied.

She has persisted, demanding answers or changes to her son’s care.

Under law, staff are required to report injuries and their findings to Allen. And Aquilino has a one-to-one staffing level, meaning someone is with him at all times, and for a time that staffing level was increased to two-to-one.

Still, about two-thirds of his injuries were described as being of unknown origin, Allen said. That includes four injuries sustained in one night Nov. 1.

The developmental center falls under the state Department of Human Services.

“DHS cannot discuss individuals or investigations, but the top priority is always the health and safety of individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities,” said Tom Hester, a spokesperson for the department. “All complaints are taken seriously and investigated thoroughly by a robust system of oversight and monitoring critical to helping ensure the health, safety and well-being of individuals receiving services and supports.”

Hester said all allegations of injuries, abuse and neglect at any of the state’s developmental centers are investigated, but that the department could not comment on any specific patient.

He also offered a detailed explanation of how complaints are investigated through an office that operates independently of the Division of Developmental Disabilities.

Allen said in most cases, the reports are of bruises on Aquilino’s upper body, on his arms or underarms. There are also incidents of knee injuries.

The broken nose appears to be the most serious incident, Allen said. In that instance, she said, the investigation did substantiate abuse or neglect.

The broken nose took place in 2014. According to Allen’s account, another staff member reported someone caring for Aquilino hid his bloody clothes in an attempt to hide the injury.

Allen accepts that the broken nose may have been an accident, although she believes it was more likely from a slap. A full-on punch to the face would have caused more damage, she said. But the staff member did not confess, she said, so she will never know for certain exactly what happened.

More concerning for her was that the medical responders told her there were multiple healed fractures from earlier injuries.

“This wasn’t the first time it had happened,” she said.

It was not the last incident, either.

“In early July of 2021, he showed up with a broken finger. Nobody knew how he’d gotten it,” she said. “It must have hurt him a lot.”

She described it as being caused by the kind of hyperextension of the index finger that sometimes takes place in basketball games.

“The only way I can think he got it is if the staff took his finger and pulled it all the way back,” Allen said. But the investigation into the injury produced inconclusive results. No one could say for sure how Aquilino got hurt, she said, and the reports included possibilities that she did not find credible, such as that he sat on his finger or otherwise injured himself.

That said, Aquilino does at times injure himself. He tends to bite his own hands and wrists, and at times hits himself in the head.

Allen described her son and others like him as the most vulnerable population. He can become aggressive at times, or exhibit behaviors that can be extremely frustrating. Many of the injuries took place overnight.

“Nick got very wary,” she said. “He wouldn’t sleep at night. The staff was getting mad at him because he wouldn’t sleep.”

In the morning, Aqualino would have new bruises, she said.

Allen receives the notes filed by staff on her son, and the results of regular checks of his body.

Allen wants cameras in the center, in rooms and in public areas. That way, there would be video documentation of injuries.

She said some organizations oppose the idea because of privacy concerns, but Aquilino has no privacy now. Allen said staff are there when he showers, when he uses the bathroom and in every other situation, documenting each step.

Families of patients who do not want cameras in their rooms could opt out, Allen suggested.

She said she remains a supporter of the developmental center model, having people with severe disabilities at a single campus, along with medical providers and support staff. Aquilino has a job to do at the center, she said, shredding paper for the offices, and appeared to thrive when he first arrived there.

“There was a honeymoon period,” she said.

Allen publicly defended the center after another parent alleged his son was injured there.

Lou Berman Sr. alleged his son, Lou Berman Jr., sustained serious injuries in December 2020. Berman Jr. was severely autistic and nonverbal, like Aquilino.

Berman later removed his son from the center.

At the time, Allen feared the center could be forced to close.

“What happens, then, to the hundreds of individuals with severe and profound disabilities, who have found a lifelong home there?” she wrote in a letter to a local weekly newspaper. “What happens to my son, who has profound disabilities, autism, and severe, challenging behaviors, and who has been abused, neglected, and restrained at multiple facilities, yet has thrived at (Woodbine Developmental Center)?”

Both Berman and Allen suggested things changed in 2020, when COVID-19 restrictions drastically curtailed visitations and limited how staff and clients could move within the center.

Allen still wants the center to remain, saying there are some in New Jersey who want to see them closed. She has tried to have Aquilino at home, among other options, but her son needs the level of oversight available at the center.

But she wants answers about how he has been hurt, and believes cameras could provide those answers.

“It’s not just about Nick’s injuries. It’s about any injury of any individual that comes back unsubstantiated,” Allen said.