Angela F.'s Story

Plymouth, MA

This wasn’t a natural death- it was murder at the hands of the hospital.

10 days before he died, he was given Ativan again, this time an even higher dose of 5mg/h over the course of 4 days.

Refused Care

“Mom called an ambulance….this is when the nightmare began.”

My Dad was admitted to Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital in Plymouth, MA on January 10th, 2022. He was an extremely healthy, vibrant man with no pre-existing conditions. COVID spread through my whole family starting with my mom. She started getting sick on New Year's Day and a few days later on Jan 4th, my Dad started getting sick. His symptoms started out like a flu and then he became dizzy with nausea and a dry cough. On his third day of symptoms, he called his primary care first thing in the AM and was told they would call him back. They finally called him back around 5:45p that night. The person who called was just a nurse who could not prescribe him anything and told him he needed to call back in an hour and talk to someone else. Feeling like crap, he said screw it and never called back. A few days went by, and the cough started getting worse, to the point he was struggling to catch his breath. The morning of January 10th, my Mom called an ambulance….this is when the nightmare began.

Against His Wishes

He was admitted with ‘COVID pneumonia’. He refused Remdesivir and was started on a small amount of Decadron and O2. He requested high dose vitamins C, D and zinc and monoclonal Ab treatment. He was told the antibodies were for outpatients only and that they would think about the vitamins. It took them 8 days of constant requests to think about the vitamins, of which they decided on a multi vitamin.

After being admitted for a few days, they wanted to try my Dad on a CPAP machine at night. He was having a lot of anxiety with the mask on so they gave him Ativan to calm him down. As documented in his medical records, he had a paradoxical reaction to the medicine. He became very agitated causing his heart to race, his O2 stats to drop, and he kept ripping his mask off. The nurse told my Mom they would never do that again (but they did, 2 more times over his stay in higher doses). After the Ativan episode, my Dad seemed to be doing better. He was sitting up in the chair, eating meals, and my Dad had told my mom he finally was able to take deep breaths. He was requesting his own clothes and toiletries and had texted me about going home. His O2 would drop if he got out of bed to use the bathroom but my Dad would self-prone and quickly recover back into the 90’s with a bipap machine. But the hospital couldn’t let an unvaccinated man survive, right? The next night, my mom received a phone call from Gale (the nastiest PA you could ever meet) saying they had an open bed in the ICU and they needed to move my Dad. Both he and my Mom refused his moving despite Gale yelling at him that ‘he would die in this (PCU) bed’. In the middle of the night, they moved him anyway. He is documented in his medical records as saying, “Everyone that goes to the ICU dies, I don’t want to die.”

Unvaccinated Target

“They put him back to bed with the bipap but this time they administered a higher dose of Ativan.”

Once in the ICU, the hospital stopped feeding him ‘in case he required intubation’, even though he had refused intubation multiple times. He fought off the ventilator for 3 days. The morning my Dad was intubated, he had gotten out of bed to use the commode. His O2 dropped to the 70s so they put him back to bed with the bipap but this time they administered a higher dose of Ativan. Again, he had a paradoxical reaction which created the ‘emergency’ the hospital needed to vent him against his will. The medication caused his heart to race and suppressed his ability to breath and he was unable to get his O2 back up. Without even a call to my Mom, they vented him. 21 days into this horrid experience, my Mom was finally allowed to go see him. On her first visit, she was pulled aside by that awful PA Gale who told her to get vaccinated and if my Dad survived he needed to get vaccinated too. This PA was there every time my Dad declined and was the one who authorized the Ativan 2 additional times after it was documented in his medical records as a Severe Adverse Reaction. She even had the balls to say my dad ‘was where he was because he’s not vaccinated’. We requested she be removed from his care for her bias against him, but the hospital ignored our multiple requests and the patient advocate never returned my call.

The Place of Death

“We fought so hard to get him the treatment he needed but instead we were forced to watch this perfectly healthy man who was so full of life, decline and there was nothing we could do about it.”

We requested the hospital try everything: Ivermectin, HCQ, Zpack, ECMO, plasma therapy, dialysis, buedesine, high dose corticosteroids, high dose vitamins; pretty much the entire FLCCC protocol. ALL was denied. Their reasons: it’s not hospital protocol, we’ve tried it on others and it didn’t work, he’s too old. In hindsight, they never gave him any treatment at all, just supportive care. A protocol of sedatives, opioids and occasionally, ineffective low doses of steroids and/or antibiotics. We fought so hard to get him the treatment he needed but instead we were forced to watch this perfectly healthy man who was so full of life, decline and there was nothing we could do about it. He had developed multiple bed sores, a sore on his bottom lip from the pressure of being face down on the intubation tube and was only ever covered in a sheet in a freezing ICU in the dead of winter. 10 days before he died, he was given Ativan again, this time an even higher dose of 5mg/h over the course of 4 days (again by Gale). In consultation with other healthcare professionals, this amount would only be needed if he was thrashing, pulling his tubes out and irritable but his records say the opposite. He was heavily sedated and unresponsive. My dad fought so hard until the very end, surviving his last 3 days with his O2 sats in the 50s, something the Drs and nurses had never seen before. This wasn’t a natural death- it was murder at the hands of the hospital.

The hospital never offered us hope, never said they would do everything they could to save his life, never worked on a care plan with our family, nothing! Just the constant berating of ‘He’s not going to make it’, ‘he’s a very sick man’ and the worst of them all ‘It's COVID’. The heartlessness of all but one of his caregivers will stay with us forever. It’s hard to put into words what they’ve done to our family and most importantly, my Mom who now has to learn to live without him. We pray justice is served.