Dallas VA failed vet by sending him home with infected, baseball-size sores days before death, daughter says in lawsuit
Kevin Krause, Federal Courts Reporter
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A Tarrant County woman on Tuesday sued the government in federal court, saying the Dallas VA Medical Center released her very sick father four days after he was admitted for numerous sores, rotting flesh and infections that discharged thick green pus.
Five days later, he was dead, the wrongful death lawsuit said.
Carol Truelove said her father, Edward Harper, should never have been released in February 2016 in that condition. She is seeking more than $1 million in damages.
A hospital spokeswoman said she couldn’t comment on active litigation.
Harper, 85, an Air Force veteran, was admitted to the hospital Feb. 7, 2016, for gangrene but wasn’t given antibiotics or IV fluids, the lawsuit said.
The sores and discharge ran from his heel up to his right ear, the lawsuit said.
After being discharged, Harper could not eat, drink anything or take his medication because it caused him to choke, the suit said. And when he tried to move, he would “yell in pain,” the lawsuit said.
“Decedent was in so extreme an amount of pain that he was incapable of sitting up or talking,” the lawsuit said.
Harper died Feb. 16 from the infections and “conditions from which he suffered,” the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit alleges that the Dallas VA Medical Center was negligent in failing to properly diagnose and treat Harper.
Harper was “industrious and energetic” and a “caretaker of the family,” Truelove said in her lawsuit. His obituary said he was a self-employed painter.
“Mr. Harper loved his family and taking them on trips around the country giving them many fond memories,” the obituary said.
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