Eighth Generation

10861. Clinard Yates Coffey was born on 21 September 1910 in North Carolina.⁷¹⁷¹ Clinard Yates appeared in a news item on 26 July 1989 reporting on his successful efforts to save a drowned child. Clinard died in Lincolnton, Lincoln Co., NC on 25 August 1995 and was buried at River View Cemetery in Lincolnton, Lincoln Co., NC in August 1995 .^{31740,31741,31742,31743}

Obituary, The Charlotte Observer, Charlotte, NC, Mon., Aug. 28, 1995

Mr. Clinard Yates Coffey, 84, of 1069 South Grove Ext. died Aug. 25, 1995 at Lincoln County Hospital. Funeral will be 2 p.m. today at Riverview Baptist Church with Rev. Nathan May officiating. Burial will follow in the church cemetery. The family will receive friends 12:30-2 p.m. today at Riverview Baptist Church. The family will be at the home of Mr. Coffey all other times.

Mr. Coffey was born September 21, 1910 and is the son of the late Millard C. and Fannie Davis Coffey. He was a member of Riverview Baptist Church where he served as a deacon. He was a retiree of Duke Power, Toddville warehouse, and was a gospel singer and manager of the ''Gospel Tones'', ''Southerners'', and ''Song Masters'' quartets. Mr. Coffey also served as a Boy Scout troop leader in the early 1940's.

Mr. Coffey is survived by his wife, Mrs. Bryte Beal Coffey of the home; one son, C.E. ''Bud'' Coffey of Lincolnton; one daughter, Mrs. Shirley Bailey of Lincolnton; five grandchildren and thirteen great grandchildren.

In lieu of flowers the family requests that memorials be made to the American Heart Association, 228 E. Congress Street, Lincolnton, NC 28092. Warlick Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.

Clinard Yates Coffey and Alda Bryte Beal were married circa 1929 in North Carolina. They appeared in the census on 4 April 1930 in Lincoln Co., NC.³¹⁷⁴⁴ Alda Bryte Beal, daughter of Mack Pressley Beal and Annabell Fox, was born on 26 April 1912 in Lincoln Co., NC. Alda died in Lincolnton, Lincoln Co., NC on 6 April 2005 and was buried at River View Cemetery in Lincolnton, Lincoln Co., NC on 9 April 2005 .³¹⁷⁴⁵

Obituary, The Gaston Gazette Online, Gastonia, Lincoln Co., NC, Apr. 8, 2005,

ALDA BEAL COFFEE

LINCOLNTON — Alda Bryte Beal Coffey, 92, of 214 McGinnis Ave., died April 6, 2005.

She was born in Lincoln County, daughter of the late Mack Pressley and Annabell Fox Beal.

FUNERAL: 3 p.m. Saturday, Riverview Baptist Church, body will be placed in the church one hour before service

VISITATION: One hour before service in the church Fellowship Hall

Mrs. Coffey lived in Lincoln County all her life and was retired from J.P. Stevens in Lincolnton. Since the age of thirteen, she was a member of Riverview Baptist Church where she was active all her life and held many offices in the church until her health no longer permitted her to attend church services.

SURVIVORS: One son, C.E. “Bud” Coffey and his wife Pat of Lincolnton; one daughter, Shirley C. Bailey and her husband Rev. M.L. “Bill” of Lincolnton; five grandchildren, Greg Davis and wife Karen, Leslie Davis and wife Teresa, Kevin Coffey and wife Lanelle, Jeff Coffey and wife Anna, Sue Ellen and husband Darren Ingle; twelve great-grandchildren, Elizabeth Davis, Canaan Davis, Abby Coffey, Brent Coffey, Taren Coffey, Jackie Franklin and Brooke Owens, Jason Davis, Caleb Davis, Kyle Coffey, Jeremy Coffey, John Coffey and Phillip Franklin; two great-great-grandchildren

PRECEDED IN DEATH BY: Her husband of 67 years, Clinard Yates Coffey; one brother, Marshall Beal and a sister Era Mae Beal

OFFICIATING CLERGY: Rev. Jamie Woodyard

MEMORIALS: Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Disorders Association, 3800 Shamrock Drive, Charlotte, NC 28212-3220 or to the American Heart Association, P.O. Box 5216, Glenn Allen, VA 23058-5267

ARRANGEMENTS: Warlick Funeral Home, Lincolnton

Clinard Yates Coffey and Alda Bryte Beal had the following children:

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Clinard Elliott "Bud" Coffey was born on 9 September 1936 in Lincoln Co., NC. Clinard died in Lincoln Co., NC on 6 April 2014 and was buried at David Memorial Baptist Church Cemetery in Lincolnton, Lincoln Co., NC on 12 April 2014 .^{31746,31747,31748}

An article appeared in The Charlotte Observer, a North Carolina newspaper, on Aug. 22, 2014 under the byline of Joe DePriest in which it was described how Bud's family concluded he had died unnecessarily.

Bud's son Jeff explained that he had been admitted to a local hospice for pain management. Jeff examined medical records and concluded that his father had died from increased dosages of morphine and other drugs by hospice doctors.

The Washington Post published an undated expose on the hospice business across the US. They focused on several patients who were in good health before entering hospice but died shortly after.

Clinard was featured in the article and this is only part of the long and detailed story:

"MAIDEN, N.C. — Clinard “Bud” Coffey, 77, a retired corrections officer, did the crossword in The Charlotte Observer after breakfast every morning, pursued his hobby of drawing cartoons, talked seven or eight times a day to his son Jeff and, just two weeks before his death, told a pal that he still felt “like a teenager.

"He did, however, have some chronic back pain, and in late March he was enrolled in hospice care “essentially for pain management,” his doctor said. Over a two week period, he received rising doses of morphine and other powerful drugs, grew sleepy and disoriented, and stopped breathing, dying peacefully at home, according to his family and medical records they provided.

"His death certificate, which was signed by the hospice doctor, listed the cause as “renal cell carcinoma” or kidney cancer. But that doctor had never examined Coffey, his family said, and medical records from just a few weeks earlier do not mention it.

“My dad wasn’t dying of cancer,” said his son, Jeff Coffey. “Once he was on hospice, their answer for everything was more drugs. Everything we know about his death is consistent with an overdose.

"An attorney for the hospice company, Curo Health, said it could not comment on the case without authorization from Coffey’s family. When Jeff Coffey authorized the company to comment, however, the attorney said that the company would not comment because the Coffey family had hired an attorney in preparation for a lawsuit.

"Bud Coffey’s diagnosis appears to have changed when he was enrolled into hospice.

"The Coffey family provided The Post with records of Coffey’s last visit to his primary care doctor, the notes of the hospice nurses, a list of his medications, hand-written tallies of what drugs family members administered to him and a copy of the doctor’s order referring him to hospice.

"For years, he’d been living under the shadow of knowing that he had an aortic aneurysm, a bulge in his body’s critical artery that seemed poised at some point to rupture and cause sudden death. Medical references put the annual risk of an aortic aneurysm like Coffey’s rupturing at 30 to 50 percent.

"“It would be fatal almost instantly,” Coffey wrote to a friend in March. But he said he felt healthy, and his interest in life — and the Carolina Panthers — was avid. Videos of Bud Coffey taken just weeks before his death show him out for a drive with his son, slow and frail, but walking with a cane and talking.

"On March 17, just a few days before he was enrolled in hospice, Coffey’s primary care doctor listed three diagnoses: an “unspecified disorder” of the kidney, the aortic aneurysm and chronic back pain. The report also noted numerous kidney stones.

"The list of diagnoses did not mention cancer. The diagnosis of an unspecified kidney ailment arose after a scan showed a two-centimeter spot on his kidney. Even if it had proven to be cancer, a spot that small is generally considered to reflect an early stage of the disease, doctors said. In rare cases, it could have spread.

"On March 20, Coffey’s primary care doctor referred him for hospice care, “essentially for pain management,” because he was taking Percocets and still felt some pain, according to records.

"“Hopefully they can manage his pain better,” the notes on his medical record say.

The doctor referred the family to Community Home Care and Hospice, which in May 2012 had been acquired by Curo Health, a company formed through acquisitions by a private equity firm.
When a few days later Coffey was formally enrolled at the hospice, however, his diagnosis appears to have changed. The hospice’s insurance verification form lists the diagnosis as “kidney cancer,” according to a copy of the document. For the hospice to be reimbursed by Medicare, the diagnosis must involve a terminal condition that is likely to lead to death within six months.
Then, throughout the rest of his two weeks under hospice care, workers for the hospice referred to “the cancer,” his family said.
After Bud Coffey refused to eat a hot dog from one of his favorite restaurants, and the next day rejected another of his favorites, “the hospice nurse relayed the doctors message that the cancer was spreading to his stomach,” Jeff Coffey said. “When his neck hurt, they said it had spread to his bones.
“Looking back I can’t believe I didn’t see how ridiculous it was,” Jeff Coffey said.
Bud Coffey was not in extreme pain, according to the medical records. The nursing notes say he ranked his pain as a three on a scale of 10 on some days, and some days as a four.
The response to any discomfort, the family said, was to use more drugs. After rising doses of morphine and other drugs, Bud Coffey appears to have become confused.
Three days before he died, the hospice nurse recorded that Coffey “has not been eating well…has been talking to people who aren’t there…did not recognize a family member today.”
The family, worried, requested that the hospice send a nurse who could stay with him. The request was denied, the family said.
On his last day, the family said they were, under the hospice’s direction, giving Bud Coffey 40 milligrams of liquid morphine every three hours, a substantial increase over his previous dosage, according to notes taken by the family. They had also stopped giving him his breathing medication, the family said.
He died peacefully.
“Patient died at home with family at his side,” the hospice notes say. “Wife reported he was calm when he stopped breathing.”
The next day, the hospice doctor signed the death certificate, listing the cause of death as renal cell carcinoma, or kidney cancer.
The family said the doctor never examined Coffey during his time on hospice, and that based on the manner of his death and other information, the cause of death was not cancer, and not the aneurysm which would likely have caused a sudden death, but the effects of a drug overdose. That much morphine could have been fatal, independent doctors told The Washington Post, but the lethal threshold varies from person to person.
The family was stunned by his sudden decline, Jeff Coffey said. His father may have been, too.
On March 24, he wrote an e-mail to a childhood friend.
“I know that usually hospice is called in only when death is imminent, but hospice was called in this time to monitor my medications, vital signs, etc,” he wrote. “I still feel like a teenager and if I didn’t know what was happening inside me [the aneurysm] I’d feel like I was a perfect example of good health.”

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ii.

Living (private).