{"id":96105,"date":"2020-02-21T07:56:06","date_gmt":"2020-02-21T12:56:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=96105"},"modified":"2022-01-13T20:31:17","modified_gmt":"2022-01-14T01:31:17","slug":"veteran-suicides-who-is-to-blame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=96105","title":{"rendered":"Veteran Suicides – Who is to blame?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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We are never going to stop all veteran suicides.\u00a0 \u00a0However, I think we all agree that one…is one too many.\u00a0 Who is really to blame?<\/p>\n

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The mother of a U.S. Navy Reservist who killed himself outside the Carl Vinson VA Medical Center in Dublin last year has filed an $8.2 million wrongful death claim against the Veterans Affairs Department.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Rhonda Wilson said a VA doctor abruptly stopped refilling an opioid painkiller prescription for her 28-year-old son, Gary Pressley, causing him to go into a painful withdrawal.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Pressley shot himself to death in the hospital parking lot on April 5, one of three veterans who, over a five-day span, committed suicide outside of VA facilities. One died outside the main entrance of the Atlanta VA Medical Center in Decatur the next day. Three days later, a veteran killed himself in front of hundreds of people in a waiting room at a VA clinic in Austin, Texas.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Who will tell Rhonda Wilson that her son was responsible for his own death?\u00a0 Who will tell Rhonda that taking $8.2 million from the VA will not bring her son back or save the life of one more veteran?\u00a0 It will enrich her and a hoard of lawyers on both sides of this case.\u00a0 The lawyers will get paid, they always do.\u00a0 This case and most all other cases like it get settled in a back room behind closed doors.\u00a0 Generally,\u00a0 there is another attorney wearing a robe in that room, pretending to be objective.<\/p>\n

When will we get serious about Tort Reform<\/a>?<\/p>\n

It is hard to blame the mother of someone who killed themself for much of anything.\u00a0 \u00a0Notwithstanding that, I strongly disagree with Rhonda Wilson getting paid a dime.\u00a0 This kind of nonsense has to come to an end. I can not imagine her life since the death of her son.\u00a0 Lawyers picking over the dead corpse of a veteran for their own enrichment sickens me.<\/p>\n

Doctors prescribed him hydrocodone for his pain. Without it, his mother said, he could not walk or work. He was studying business administration at Gordon State College in Barnesville and working at an auto parts store before his death. His mother\u2019s claim says he couldn\u2019t get his prescription, though there was no evidence that he was diverting, misusing or abusing his medication.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If you know anyone that can not “walk or work” without hydrocodone, please get that drug addict some help.\u00a0 And, spare me all the “I have pain and I need…” blah, blah, blah.\u00a0 If you or anyone you know, that is not dying of a terminal illness, is dependent on that kind of medication…seek help now.<\/p>\n

The VA could choose to pay the claim, negotiate it over the next six months or deny it, which could prompt his mother to sue in federal court, said her attorney, Peter Bertling.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I hope the VA tells Bertling to stop feeding off the grief of a mother who lost her son.\u00a0 There are over 30,000 veteran organizations in this country and 24-hour hotlines,\u00a0 special “Awareness Ribbons” and on and on.\u00a0 \u00a0Let’s blame doctors for giving medication to veterans and then blame them again if they stop.<\/p>\n

Gary Pressley was a full-grown man.\u00a0 Gary Pressley is responsible for killing her son, the people who have to provide the cash that she is demanding from the VA had nothing to do with it.\u00a0 You and I had nothing to do with it, but we pay the bill.\u00a0 If you want to give money to Rhonda Wilson, have at it.\u00a0 Please leave me out of it and don’t feed parasites as they gorge on the dead.<\/p>\n

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  We are never going to stop all veteran suicides.\u00a0 \u00a0However, I think we all agree … Veteran Suicides – Who is to blame?<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":667,"featured_media":96106,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[88,86],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-96105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-care-debate","category-veteran-health-care"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/667"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=96105"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96105\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":96112,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96105\/revisions\/96112"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/96106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=96105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=96105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=96105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}