{"id":6221,"date":"2013-05-09T00:03:05","date_gmt":"2013-05-09T04:03:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lcpllutzlivetotell.org\/?p=6221"},"modified":"2019-08-08T13:00:18","modified_gmt":"2019-08-08T17:00:18","slug":"documents-show-vet-committed-suicide-atlanta-va-federal-probe-mismanagement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/?p=6221","title":{"rendered":"Documents show vet committed suicide at Atlanta VA during federal probe into mismanagement"},"content":{"rendered":"

Documents show vet committed suicide at Atlanta VA during federal probe into mismanagement<\/h1>\n

By: Aaron Diamant<\/p>\n

Updated:\u00a0

\"\"<\/p>\n

DEKALB COUNTY, Ga.<\/strong>\u00a0– A local family told Channel 2 Action News the breakdowns at the Atlanta VA Medical Center in DeKalb County are to blame for another soldier’s suicide.<\/p>\n

A Channel 2 Action News investigation has exposed alarming problems at the veterans hospital after federal reports blamed bad management by hospital leaders, which lead to at least three patient deaths.<\/p>\n

Sources told Channel 2 investigative reporter Aaron Diamant about even more. It took weeks of digging, but Thursday, Diamant finally confirmed that a veteran who went to the hospital looking for help, took his own life inside the hospital in the middle of that federal investigation.<\/p>\n

“He represented what he stood for, and that was God, family, country,” Brandi Petit told Diamant, saying the country her big brother Joseph Petit turned to for help failed him.<\/p>\n

Joseph Petit had trained to be a ranger, but a knee injury knocked him out. He spent 20 years living in pain and the last few in a wheelchair, in and out of the VA system for help battling severe mental illness.<\/p>\n

“He was my brother, my only brother. He was (our mother’s) only son,” Brandi Petit said. “It was very hard.”<\/p>\n

Last November, a van from the Atlanta VA Medical Center picked him up for a therapy appointment.<\/p>\n

\"\"“As far as we know he went, but I don’t know exactly what happened afterward, because he never came home,” Brandi Petit told Diamant.<\/p>\n

When his mother, Sandra Petit, called the VA the next day looking for him, “They told me that they didn’t know where he was.”<\/p>\n

She said she got a call back a few hours later saying “that they had found him, and he was dead.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Found in an eighth floor bathroom, Joseph Petit had committed suicide a day earlier with a plastic bag, still in his wheelchair.<\/p>\n

The medical examiner’s report said Joseph Petit had shown up in the ER “having a mental health crisis.”<\/p>\n

Joseph Petit’s psychiatrist told investigators, “He was hearing voices and was afraid he was going to harm his mother.”<\/p>\n

But despite\u00a0<\/del>his previous similar suicide attempt, the psychiatrist said the hospital “did not admit Mr. Petit and thought that he had left the hospital.”<\/p>\n

“He wanted them to admit him, so that he was sure that he wasn’t going to hurt anybody,” Sandra Petit said.<\/p>\n

And Petit’s family now wants to know how the VA lost track of him.<\/p>\n

“Figure it out. Fix it, and do right by the ones you need to help,” Sandra Petit said.<\/p>\n

The VA refused to answer Diamant’s specific questions about this case, including how no one sounded an alarm when Joseph Petit missed his ride home.<\/p>\n

A short statement from the VA called every veteran suicide a tragedy and that it will continue to provide counseling and strengthen its suicide prevention efforts.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Retrieved from: http:\/\/www.wsbtv.com\/news\/local\/family-says-vet-committed-suicide-atlanta-va-durin\/242479909<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Documents show vet committed suicide at Atlanta VA during federal probe into mismanagement By: Aaron Diamant Updated:\u00a0May 9, 2013 – 6:39 PM DEKALB COUNTY, Ga.\u00a0– A local family told Channel 2 Action News the breakdowns at the Atlanta VA Medical Center in DeKalb County are to blame for another soldier’s …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6224,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cannabis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6221"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6221\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lutzlivetotell.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}