Hendersonville Health and Rehabilitation, SanStone Health and Rehabilitation, Dr. Larry Joe Russell, Jennifer Thomas, Susan Habel RN, Tammy Mace RN, Lara Mooney LPN, "Cookie" Maude Romeo, Mike Deloach, Christopher Sprenger, Gail Maloney RN and NCDHHS.
At this point, Mom had been dead for seven days. She died on a Thursday, and for some reason a medical examiner had to examine her before they could creamate her. It took till Monday to get the release. The funeral went on without her remains, which does not normally happen in a Catholic Church.
After the funeral, with all the different accounts of what had happened. I called Pardee Hospital and asked them if they would do a autopsy. They said they would not, I called Dr. Russell and asked if he would order it. He said he would check on it, he never returned my call. I wasn't sure what I should do, the mortuary called and I needed to sign before they could cremate Mom's body. With my suspicions growing every day, I made the decision to delay the cremation. This was not an easy decision to make, I didn't want to make this any harder on my family or myself.
I called the SBI, and spoke to an agent there, he said they could not get involved without local law enforcements request. I called the local sheriffs department, explained the events that had taken place. The person I spoke to originally, was concerned about what I was telling him. He took notes, and said he would have another deputy call me. I never heard back from them either. The mortuary called again, they wanted to know what to do. I told them to wait, I was going to continue to try to get an autopsy done.
I called the NC State medical examiners office and told them the story, they would not get involved. According to their own rules, an autopsy is required, if someone dies in a medical facility, from something other than what they were being treated for. Mom was not being treated for anything to do with her heart, but " old people die ".
My sister then called Dr. Harold Picus, the surgeon that had done Mom's surgery. He could not believe that she had died. DR. Picus said that they had expected a full recovery. He told my sister that he would call and order an autopsy. According to Dr. Picus, Pardee Hospital denied the request, as he was not her treating doctor, Dr. Russell was.
My sister also spoke to Dr. Mills Mom's family doctor, he was also shocked that Mom had died. Dr Mills had seen her since the surgery, and saw nothing that would indicate her passing!
I called the NC State Medical Examiners office several times, still no help. The last time I called, I spoke to Hillary Sheaves, when I was telling her the story, I mentioned the fact that Mom had fallen. She stopped me, and asked " did you say she fell? ". I told her what I knew about the fall. Ms. Sheaves took the information she needed and said she would order Mom's records from Hendersonville Health and Rehabilitation. She was the first person I had spoken to, that felt like something might be wrong.
The mortuary called again, it had been over three weeks since Mom had died. Again I told them I wanted to wait. I didn't want to leave Moms body laying in the mortuary, but I felt I needed to exhaust all possibilities of obtaining an autopsy. It took another week or so before I heard back from Ms. Sheaves. She started the conversation with an apology, I was getting used to that. According to Ms. Sheaves, the records from Hendersonville Health and Rehabilitation, didn't indicate the fall was a significant event. They could not order an autopsy.
I called Padee Hospital, and spoke to someone there who agreed to meet with my brother and I. It was early in December, and I had still not gotten appointed as the administrator of Mom's estate. Legally I had no rights to Mom's records. We met with Steve Pennock, the public relations person at Pardee Hospital, and Gail Sams RN, the emergency room nursing director. We discussed the alarming number of deaths at Hendersonville Health and Rehabilitation, which they could not comment on. Then I asked if Dr. Russell worked at Pardee, their response was that he saw patients there. I told them that I suspected that Mom had died as a result of the fall, or possibly a medication error. I begged them to do an autopsy, again they refused. I asked them if they could simply do a blood test, and take a mobile ex ray machine, and examine her head. They refused, and said the only way to get an autopsy done was to pay $4000.00, and send Moms body to Duke Medical center.
I was torn apart, Moms body had been at the mortuary for over a month at this point. I finally made the call to allow them to cremate her body. I could not continue to delay the inevitable, I felt guilty for putting it off as long as I had. Was I imagining things or was there really reasons to be suspicious?
I couldn't imagine that there could be more that would happen to make it look any worse. Well I was wrong. It's a long story, more to come.
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