‘He was always here, and now he is not’: Mom of veteran speaks out following his suicide in Dublin VA parking lot
It’s been more than two-and-a-half years since Navy Veteran Gary Steven Pressley died by suicide in the parking lot of the Carl Vinson VA Medical Center in Dublin. Legal documents say a serious car accident left Pressley with a fractured hip, pelvis, and chronic lower back pain. His family says Pressley shot himself because he was in so much pain after his outside pain management doctor stopped seeing him and his VA doctor reduced his pain medicine. Recently, the United States paid his mother a $1 million for 40 days of pain and suffering Pressley experienced before death, but court documents in the case show what her lawyer calls “negligence” in the VA system.
A mother’s loss Gary’s mom continues to mourn the loss of her son.
It was Christmas of 2019 when Rhonda Michelle Wilson of Forsyth got a new hound dog named Chloe.
“My husband bought her for me so I can use her to help with my grief,” Wilson said.
Wilson calls Chloe her therapy dog, bringing comfort as she grieves her son Gary Steven Pressley.
“Because I miss him, I want to hold him, I want to hug him, I want to talk to him like we used to talk all the time,” Wilson said.
In April of 2019, Pressley, a Navy veteran, died by suicide in the parking lot of the Carl Vinson VA Medical Center in Dublin.
“He lived like 45 minutes from here, so it was nothing for him to just show to my house and say, ‘Hey, mom,’ or for me to show up to his house and see him, and I don’t have that now. I have to go to the grave to see him, and that sucks,” Wilson said.
Last year, Wilson filed a complaint against the Veterans Administration saying Pressley killed himself because they mishandled his treatment. The United States recently paid her $1 million to settle that claim, but Wilson says she’s still faced with more questions than answers.
“If he would have been in pain management, we wouldn’t be sitting here today. If they hadn’t been reducing his medicine, we wouldn’t be sitting here today,” Wilson said.
The documents filed by Wilson’s lawyer Peter Bertling described her son’s struggles through the winter and spring of 2019 as he coped with what they called “excruciating pain.” In February, Pressley notified the Carl Vinson VA that his outside pain management doctor would no longer treat him because the VA stopped paying.
VA Doctor’s deposition Deposition details what led up to Pressley’s death
Depositions from the lawsuit show Pressley turned to the VA health clinic in Macon for help and the doctor there, Dr. Ebelechukwu Nwagbata, treated him. The deposition goes onto explain Nwagbata didn’t know for at least a week that the outside doctor had stopped treatment. The VA doctor denied a refill of Pressley’s prescription, then agreed to approve it, and after some confusion, the deposition says Pressley’s daily dose would be cut from four pills to three.
“He needed the opioids for his chronic pain, that’s why his pain management specialist appropriately prescribed him his opioids,” Attorney Peter Bertling said.
But when Bertling questioned Nwagbata during a deposition, the doctor admitted that she misunderstood the VA’s protocols on opioids.
“She didn’t even sit in and listen to that, she was going back and forth and seeing patients. She also didn’t know that it was something that was recorded that she could have listened to later,” Bertling said.
After his hydrocodone prescription ran out, the doctor’s deposition shows Pressley called the Macon clinic On April 3, 4, and 5 to try to get it refilled. On the morning of April 5, Nwagbata told Pressley over the phone he would have to take a drug test before she could decide to refill the prescription. Pressley texted his girlfriend that he would test negative because he hadn’t been taking the medicine.
Still in pain and with no medication, Pressley told his girlfriend that afternoon that, “At 5, they can find my body at Dublin office.” Pressley’s sister tried to call the Dublin VA for help, but she says no one tried to locate him or help him. A police report shows a VA police officer found Pressley in a parked car around 8 p.m. with a gunshot wound to the chest.
After Rhonda Wilson filed her complaint, Attorney Bertling says they found more troubling facts. During her deposition, Dr. Nwagbata said she became a federal employee in 2018 after working for the VA as an outside contractor, but she said she never received special training in taking care of veterans like prescribing opioids or opioid therapy for chronic pain. She testified that she had never seen and was never taught the VA’s guidelines that recommended tapering off opioids.
Even though Pressley’s mom settled with the VA she says life will never be the same.
“I can’t spend Christmas at home, I can’t spend Thanksgiving at home, because he was always here, and now, he is not,” Wilson said.
VA’s response
We reached out to the VA for a comment, and they said, in part:
After this tragedy, the medical center leadership immediately implemented additional suicide awareness and prevention training. We maintain a comprehensive suicide prevention training program for all staff, including those responsible for answering the phones after hours, and have since expedited hiring additional Mental Health staff. We will continually review policies and procedures and implement any necessary improvements to prevent similar tragedies in the future.
Nwagbata testified she would work after hours to get work done and, says she “may have” reported in a employee survey “moral distress” that stemmed from not knowing what to do sometimes, getting conflicted information from coworkers, and feeling like she was being picked on. In the deposition, the doctor expressed remorse, saying, “I wish it didn’t happen in the first place.”
Filed under: General Problems
You can’t dump these cowards in a deep enough hole…