A caregiver for a Bristol man with no use of his legs has been arrested on neglect and abuse charges after the man was treated in the hospital last summer for bedsores so severe that bones were visible and maggots were eating away at the wounds days before he died, according to police.

Kimberly Mason, 49, of Waterbury was arrested by the Bristol Police Department on charges of negligent cruelty to persons and third-degree abuse of persons, according to police records.

The arrest came following an investigation that lasted nearly seven months into the death of a Bristol resident who police said was in the care of Mason. The man’s identity has been redacted from the arrest warrant affidavit for Mason.

According to the affidavit, Bristol police responded to a medical assist call on June 30, 2023, just after 6:15 p.m. for a paraplegic who was unresponsive. The man was unable to care for himself, as he had no use of his legs, could only make “slight movements of his arms” and had “minimal use of his hands,” police wrote. The man was left a paraplegic following a car accident several years before his death.

The man was taken in an ambulance to Bristol Hospital.

About three hours later, police were contacted by the man’s daughter who made abuse allegations against Mason. Police responded to the hospital to investigate and learned that the victim had “infections/wound sores throughout his body, with flesh and bone showing mainly on his legs and back,” the affidavit said. The man also had maggots that were eating at his wounds, police wrote. His condition was initially considered stable.

Doctors told police the victim arrived at the hospital unresponsive and had feces all over his body, the warrant affidavit said. His blood sugar was “in the 20s,” police wrote, adding that the World Health Organization states a normal blood sugar level should be between 70 to 125 milligrams per deciliter. The man also had pneumonia in one of his lungs.

Doctors told police that, because the man is a paraplegic, a caregiver should be doing things like giving him medications, bathing him and providing wound care “and movement, so he does not develop bedsores,” the affidavit said. Medical professionals told police it would take “weeks, if not months, of physical neglect” for the victim to develop the level of wounds and infections discovered on his body.

Police interviewed Mason the day the victim was found unresponsive and she told them she took care of the man with no help from any of his family, according to the warrant affidavit. Mason told investigators she regularly bathed the man, gave him his daily medications, fed him and changed his wound dressings, the affidavit said.

However, Mason told police the man stopped eating four to five days earlier and would not let her touch him, according to the affidavit. She said she called for an ambulance when she noticed he was “acting differently,” the warrant affidavit said.

During the investigation, police noted that Mason’s residence appeared neat and had food in the refrigerator as well as “common necessities,” the warrant affidavit said. Police also said it appeared as though she cleaned the victim’s room before their arrival. Officers found a cleaning product outside the room and what appeared to be a bleach stain where the victim was lying in bed,” according to the affidavit.

Two days after receiving the initial complaint, Bristol investigators learned that the victim had died, the warrant affidavit said.

During a subsequent interview with the victim’s daughter, she told police Mason began living with her father in 2021 and serving as his caretaker, the warrant affidavit said.

According to the warrant, a toxicology test done at the hospital showed the victim tested positive for cocaine and opiates at the time of his death.

An autopsy conducted by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner revealed the man had fentanyl, cocaine, methadone and morphine in his system.

Medical records obtained by investigators with a search warrant included a note from a doctor that indicated, “Sadly, the patient is apparently being given recreational drugs by his caregiver, who the son says is named Kimberly,” according to the affidavit.

Bristol Hospital’s medical records also showed that, before the victim was treated at the emergency department in June 2023, he had not been to the hospital since November 2022, the warrant affidavit said. Police allege that once Mason took over as caregiver for the victim, he stopped going to the doctor and had not been seen by a registered nurse, according to the affidavit.

The man’s cause of death was ruled an accident due to “health complications of remote blunt trauma of the neck and cervical spine cord injury,” the warrant affidavit said. The trauma, the autopsy concluded, was caused by a car accident in 2015. Contributing factors in the man’s death included “acute fentanyl, methadone, morphine and gabapentin use,” according to the affidavit.

The autopsy could not determine whether the man’s bedsores were a contributing factor to his death,” the warrant affidavit said.

During the investigation, the victim’s daughter said she had received “concerning” text messages and voicemails from her father during the eight months leading up to his death, the warrant affidavit said. The daughter said her father had at times asked for her help with things like closing a window because he was cold or for water or food because he was thirsty and starving, according to the affidavit. In some of the messages, he told his daughter Mason could not help him because she was asleep or “not the (expletive) out,” which the daughter took to mean she was “knocked” out.

When police interviewed Mason for a second time days after the man’s death, she told investigators she had become the victim’s caregiver about two and a half years prior when she was hired by a care company, the warrant affidavit said. She said she received a weekly paycheck from the company and that the services for the victim were paid for by the state of Connecticut, according to the affidavit.

Mason told police she was not a registered nurse and did not receive any type of formal training or certifications, investigators wrote. She said her only “training” came from watching other physical therapists, according to the warrant.

Police wrote in the affidavit that Mason was unable to provide the name of the victim’s primary care doctor or a visiting nurse and could not “articulate when he was last treated.” She denied supplying him drugs and said she suspected he used them with the assistance of his “friends” who would visit him, the warrant affidavit said.

When questioned on how she could not see the victim’s wounds if she were bathing him daily, Mason began yelling and told investigators about two weeks before his death she lifted his sheet and saw that “his skin peeled off his back,” according to the affidavit. She told police she informed a family member and that the two of them begged the victim to go to the hospital, but he refused, police wrote. She said she did not call for an ambulance because she considered the victim her “employer” and she “had to listen to him,” the warrant affidavit said.

Following her arrest, Mason was initially held in lieu of $125,000 bail and arraigned in New Britain Superior Court on Tuesday. During the hearing, a judge reduced her bail to $75,000.

Mason remains in custody and is due back in court on Feb. 28. She has not entered a plea.