Telling Helen's Story

How the 2009 Advanced Seminar helped me tell Helen's story

By Greg Eiesland, TLC 2004

Last fall I had the opportunity to tell Helen's story to a South Dakota jury. Helen graduated from college in 1929. Her family thought education was important. So did Helen. She taught school for a number of years and remained particularly active with her alma mater, Dakota Wesleyan University (DWU). After reaching 100 years of age, she became unsteady on her feet and fell. Helen informed her family that she was going to a nursing home because she would need assistance to keep walking. "I don't want to be in a wheelchair."

That autumn a new library was being dedicated on the DWU campus to its most famous alumnus and Helen's former pupil, George McGovern. The dedication speakers in this small college town were President Bill Clinton and Senator Bob Dole. Helen was to be an honored guest and a plaque placed in the library as a tribute to Helen and her family.

On August 14th an overworked and undertrained CNA dropped Helen. She broke her hip and shoulder. Helen died a month later and six weeks before the library dedication.

Kaitlin Larimer helped me pick the jury. A crucial question to the jurors was “does it
make a difference how you die?” Is Helen entitled to live out her life in peaceful
serenity? Or, should she die a lingering death from the forces of bone breaking
trauma?

One of her devoted sons, recreated a hospital room scene of Helen having to be
repositioned every two hours and the pain that it caused her. The case was tried in a
small South Dakota town against a “mom and pop” nursing home. The defense
emphasized the nature of their local business and urged that with Helen’s severe heart
condition, blindness and being 100 years old, that any award would have to reflect
those realities. The jury decided that “it did matter how you die,” and awarded
$500,000.

At the 2009 graduate seminar at the Ranch, Josh Karton and Jude Basile got me up in
front of the group and told me to make an opening statement on a case that was on my
mind. I chose Helen’s case. Then they said “no, I want you to sing your opening
statement.” So I sang Helen’s opening statement to the group. While I didn’t sing my
opening statement at Helen’s trial, the insights from that exercise helped me portray the
passion of Helen’s life and death.