Vietnam veteran's death ruled a homicide after investigators discover he was injected with fatal dose of insulin at VA hospital
CLARKSBURG, WEST VIRGINIA: The death of a military veteran from Ruffs Dale in Westmoreland County after he was treated at a veterans hospital has been ruled a homicide. A wrongful death lawsuit has been filed in this regard.
The complaint read that Felix McDermott was a retired sergeant who died on April 8, 2018, at the Louis A Johnson VA Medical Center in Clarksburg, West Virginia, after they injected him with a fatal dose of insulin while he was at the center.
According to KDKA, the complaint read that after McDermott developed aspiration pneumonia, he was admitted to the hospital for three days before he passed away. He was one among nine or 10 other patients who died out of sudden unexplained low blood sugar in the center.
The complaint revealed that each person received a massive and wrong dosage of insulin in the abdomen that wasn't ordered by any doctor. McDermott's family attorney Tony O'Dell shared, "It's all very disturbing that people can serve their country and are being killed either extremely negligently, grossly negligently or intentionally."
Additionally, the complaint stated that the veteran wasn't diagnosed with diabetes, but he did suffer from dementia. He was also physically disabled because of a previous stroke.
McDermott's family wasn't informed that the cause of his death was low blood sugar. They found out months after his death when McDermott's daughter was contacted by government investigators.
They told her about the deaths and how they believe that his death was not due to natural causes. The inspector general ordered the veteran's remains exhumed in October 2018 and flown down to Dover Air Force Base for an autopsy.
The complaint shared that the autopsy revealed there were no orders from the hospital to inject McDermott with insulin and it was wrongfully, negligently or intentionally injected. His autopsy also revealed that he received a shot of insulin in the left side of his abdomen and he was not diabetic and had no prior history of using insulin.
McDermott's death was ruled a homicide and VA investigators shared that they have a person of interest in the death. O'Dell added, "Each time one of these deaths happened, they had an obligation. They had an obligation to run it to ground to find out what happened, why it happened, how it can be prevented."
Mc Dermott was a Vietnam veteran who was also a member of the US Army and Pennsylvania National Guard.