After weeks of staff resignations, only two employees remained at The Heritage of Sugar Mountain, a 40-bed assisted living facility in Newland. On August 2nd, resident care aide Macie Vance realized no one was coming to relieve her, prompting her and coworker Doug Foster to work nearly 30 hours straight to care for the facility’s 27 residents. The next day, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services shut down the facility, citing violations of staffing and resident rights laws. The closure came just two weeks after the facility was sold to Residence Care Group LLC, whose leadership did not respond to inquiries. Thanks to an emergency effort by social services and local agencies, all residents were safely relocated by the evening of August 2nd.
