Gail Pratt says her mother's stay at an Aurora rehabilitation center was supposed to help her heal. Instead, she says, her mother — a double amputee named Janice Hopson — came out with a broken shoulder and fractures throughout her body after a certified nursing assistant moved her without a lift in June.
Pratt told CBS Colorado that her mother was moved without the equipment required under her care plan, and that she had specifically warned staff at Highland Park Rehabilitation & Care Center that moving Hopson without multiple staff members and proper equipment was dangerous. The facility is located at 500 Geneva St. in Aurora, according to ProPublica's nursing home records.
Highland Park staff later told Pratt that the nurse responsible for moving Hopson had been fired, the CBS Colorado report states. But the family's attorney, Steven Flaxman, said the problems went well beyond one employee. He said failures contributing to the drop extended beyond personnel to corporate oversight, according to the same report.
State Regulators Cited the Facility Over Hopson's Case
The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment investigated the incident involving Hopson and cited Highland Park for failing to ensure supervision and monitor accident-prevention devices in her case, per the station's report. ProPublica's facility records separately show Highland Park was cited for failing to ensure nursing-home areas were free from accident hazards and for failing to provide adequate supervision to prevent accidents — a deficiency classified as causing actual harm that was not immediate jeopardy.
The same facility record shows citations tied to notifying residents, doctors and family members about situations affecting a resident, as well as deficiencies involving protecting residents from abuse, neglect and exploitation, and deficiencies involving infection prevention and control. ProPublica's page also notes Highland Park has no record of fines or payment suspensions over the past three years.
Per the same account from CBS Colorado, Highland Park received one of 10 citations issued statewide in 2025, and Colorado has issued 27 citations so far in 2026 covering building safety issues, unsafe or unclean conditions, accident hazards and medication errors.
A $1 Million Cap Even if Bills Reach $10 Million
Medical malpractice attorney Megan Matthews, co-counsel in the case, told the station that staffing is often where corporations seek to save money at local facilities. Colorado law requires at least $500,000 in insurance coverage for a facility, but the article notes Highland Park carries $1 million in insurance coverage for the entire facility — and has said it would pay at most $1 million even if a patient's medical bills reached $10 million or the patient were comatose or paralyzed.
Highland Park is owned by Sweetwater Care Resources LLC, a California corporation, which took full ownership of the facility in June 2024, according to ProPublica's ownership records. The same report notes Sweetwater agreed to a $15 million settlement with the California attorney general in 2026 over staffing standards, without admitting wrongdoing. Sweetwater did not respond to a CBS Colorado request for comment, the station reported.
Highland Park administrators said they could not comment on pending litigation and instead referred CBS Colorado to the facility's five-star Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services rating. Pratt said she wants someone to be held responsible for her mother's care, telling the station her mother needed more care than she believes the facility provided.
A Statewide Pattern of Rising Complaints
The allegations surface amid a broader strain on Colorado's nursing home sector. In 2025, 40% of nursing homes in the state had severe deficiencies, up from 14% in 2019, according to The Denver Post. Formal complaints about Colorado nursing homes and assisted-living centers climbed to 7,426 in fiscal year 2025, up from 6,778 in 2024 and 6,342 in 2023, the paper reported, with regulators reporting 175 nursing-home and assisted-living investigations in progress as of June 2026.
The Denver Post also reported that Colorado long-term-care facilities see an annual staff turnover rate of 47%, even as nursing home companies' annual profits average around 2%. Colorado has lost 10 nursing homes since January 2023, according to Skilled Nursing News, which reported that state regulators are weighing whether to raise the minimum required nursing care from two hours to three hours per resident per day, even as Colorado moved to cut Medicaid reimbursement rates by 2% starting July 1 from a pre-cut average payment of about $288 per resident per day.
By law, health care facilities generally must report specified incidents to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment within one business day, with exceptions allowing nursing facilities 24-hour reporting for certain events, according to the agency. CDPHE says a brief summary of event findings is written for public review afterward, highlighting preventative safety measures taken by the provider.
