15-05-2025
Pierce County man with dementia walked away from hospital. He made it 9 miles
On a gloomy morning in June 2024, an elderly Orting man stood gingerly in front of a King County sheriff's deputy on a wet, rural two-lane road in Kent.
The deputy held steady onto the man's right hand for support, as if the two were prolonging a handshake, and asked him if he knew his current whereabouts.
Gary Lay, a 74-year-old retired Boeing worker, responded, 'Yes,' but then he laughed. He couldn't give a straight answer. He appeared disoriented.
Body-camera footage obtained by The News Tribune captured the scene from June 15, 2024, including law enforcement's efforts to solve an apparent mystery. 'What is he doing up here?' one deputy can be heard asking.
Lay, who suffers from dementia, wandered overnight for more than 10 hours and at least nine miles, walking away from Auburn Medical Center where he had been admitted the day prior to undergo an evaluation for his condition, according to a lawsuit filed this week against the hospital's owner, Tacoma-based MultiCare.
The complaint, filed in King County Superior Court on Tuesday, alleges that MultiCare knew Lay had dementia and was a significant flight risk but failed to properly monitor him, implement an adequate plan to prevent him from leaving or detect his absence within a reasonable time.
No missing-persons report was filed with law enforcement and no Silver Alert — an advisory for missing persons over 60 years old — was requested, the lawsuit claimed.
'This should never have happened. We entrusted him into their care,' Marcene Lay, the victim's wife of nearly 40 years, told The News Tribune in an interview Tuesday. 'He's very vulnerable. He cannot take care of himself. And they let him down. He should never have been able to walk away from that hospital.'
Marcene Lay, 65, is the plaintiff in the suit, named individually and as the power of attorney for her husband, according to a copy of the complaint. She and her attorney, Neil Stubbs, spoke to The News Tribune about the incident from Stubbs' law office in downtown Tacoma.
Stubbs claimed that medical records he obtained indicated that MultiCare did nothing to try to find Gary Lay, who he noted has the mental capacity of a child due to his condition.
'Imagine if a 1 to 1-1/2 year old had escaped day care,' he said. 'What would happen?'
In a statement, MultiCare spokesperson Scott Thompson said that the health care system could not respond to the allegations because litigation was ongoing.
'MultiCare's commitment to our mission — partnering for healing and a healthy future — is unwavering,' Thompson said. 'We have no higher priority than the health and safety of every patient in our care.'
Gary and Marcene Lay met in Palm Springs, California, and lived in Orting for three decades. Gary Lay is an Air Force veteran who served two tours in Vietnam. Both worked in the aviation industry until Marcene Lay later took a job in the Orting School District, she said. The couple have two children.
Around 2021, Gary Lay began to exhibit signs of dementia — a broad term for symptoms that affect memory, thinking and social abilities, according to Mayo Clinic. Its most common cause is Alzheimer's disease.
Prior to then, personal issues in their relationship led Marcene Lay to move out of their Orting home, but she remained nearby. She took care of him after his diagnosis, she said, including ensuring that his bills were paid and he had groceries. She ultimately would begin to split time between Orting and Oregon, where she had family who also needed her attention.
In 2023, Marcene Lay said she received a phone call that her husband had wandered from his home and needed to be placed in a facility for seniors who require care for dementia. For nearly a year, Gary Lay stayed at an assisted-living facility in South Hill.
As he gradually declined and grew more agitated, the facility sought to adjust his psychiatric medications. To do so, he needed to be admitted for as long as a week to Auburn Medical Center, according to Marcene Lay.
'He does not know who I am at all,' she said. 'Doesn't recognize me a bit, which is probably the hardest part ever.'
His hospital stay would prove to be short-lived. On his first day, he walked out at roughly 11 p.m. and was seen leaving by staff who didn't intervene, the lawsuit claimed. At about 9:30 the next morning, someone called 911 to report that Gary Lay was disoriented in the vicinity of the 31400 block of East Morton Drive Southeast in Kent, the suit said.
Gary Lay may have walked for longer than nine miles, according to Stubbs.
The estimated distance of 9.2 miles was calculated using a direct path between the hospital and where he was found. There were six to eight potential routes that Gary Lay could have taken, a couple of which would have required him to cross State Route 18 twice.
Marcene Lay said she was told by a deputy it was believed her husband had traveled 13 miles and crossed SR 18 at least once before he was found in a yard, curled up and hurt.
'How he's still alive, I have no clue,' she said.
Marcene Lay recalled driving to Washington from Oregon after being notified of the situation by the couple's daughter, who had received a call from a deputy.
'I was flabbergasted,' Marcene Lay said.
In the body-camera footage, which was shared by Stubbs with The News Tribune, Gary Lay is bent noticeably to his right and hobbling in a blue jacket and dark pants. The video begins with Gary Lay standing on the side of a road and speaking with a deputy near the deputy's parked patrol vehicle.
Deputies who responded to the location where his trek ended called medical aid to attend to his injured back, according to the footage. Law enforcement learned that Gary Lay had been in a memory-care facility and knew, based on his hospital wristband, he was in a hospital the prior day.
It was clear from the footage that deputies were investigating where he had come from — his bracelet apparently didn't have the hospital's name — and one deputy worked to identify and reach out to family members.
After a deputy informed a partner that Gary Lay's daughter had confirmed his admittance to Auburn Medical Center, the other deputy replied: 'And he walked away? And nobody knows? Holy.'
Marcene Lay is suing MultiCare for negligence and abuse and neglect of a vulnerable adult, among other claims, according to the suit. The complaint seeks unspecified damages for emotional distress, medical expenses and other causes, and legal fees.
The incident negatively affected Gary Lay, who was subsequently in the Auburn hospital for roughly two weeks for treatment, according to his wife. She said that a COVID-19 outbreak in the facility's geriatric psychiatric center precluded her husband from receiving the evaluation he was originally intended to have.
As a result, Gary Lay couldn't return to his assisted-living facility in South Hill, forcing Marcene Lay to act quickly to find him a new home in Puyallup.
'I want the hospital to have a protocol or a system or something that never lets this happen again to anybody,' she said. 'That's the biggest thing I want out of it. It should not have happened to him and it should never happen to anybody else.'
