Veteran’s remains found in DC VA parking lot
NBC Washington reports that a veteran was found dead in his car in the parking lot of the District of Columbia’s VA hospital facility. His sister reported the veteran missing when he didn’t return home from an appointment on May 15th. After her repeated calls to the VA, the sister went to search the parking lot herself on May 17th and found his unresponsive body.
A police report obtained by the I-Team said the veteran was found “slumped over” and unconscious in a vehicle at the medical center’s parking lot. The large DC VA Medical Center, which sits along Irving Street near North Capitol Street in Northwest, has a large, open-air parking lot near its main entrance.
“We’re investigating the time lag,” acting medical center Director Larry Connell said.
The medical examiner is still determining the cause of death, Connell said.
“I met with the veteran’s sister that evening and expressed our condolences,” Connell said.
The U.S. House Committee on Veterans Affairs, which oversees the agency and its D.C. medical center, said it is also investigating the incident.
Brian Hawkins was fired as the director in April due to his gross mismanagement of those facilities. I guess he didn’t take his problems with him. The Northwest DC hospital is currently being investigated by the VA OIG for other issues. I can help them out – Walter Reed left DC because the workforce in DC is lazy and incompetent. I’ve been a patient in the VA’s DC facility and my medical staff was excellent, but the administrative personnel didn’t give a rat’s ass about any patients. They were more interested in the social gatherings in the lobby or at the picnic benches outside. God forbid they be forced to look in the parking lot for a dead body.
Thanks to Richard for the tip.
Category: Veterans' Affairs Department
Every time I see something like this, I wonder how the admin people would feel if they were treated so carelessly.
“We’re investigating the time lag,” acting medical center Director Larry Connell said.”
That an important point here. I’m not sure how to feel about this one way or another without more facts.
RIP
Did he make his appointment? If so, someone missed some vital information I think…if he didn’t, did anyone bother to find out why? Obviously not!!
I’m not sure what you’re saying. Are you implying that when a person fully capable of driving on his own and managing his daily activities doesn’t show for an appointment, you expect the office to try to track him down to be sure he hasn’t died? Are you saying the office personnel have some sort of duty to make sure such a person arrives home safely after he keeps an appointment?
WTF? UFB… just UFB!
The culture within the VA needs to be razed and rebuilt from the ground up… and getting rid of the unions within the federal workforce would be a start.
They’ll “investigate”… and come up with recommendations. But, will they ever hold people accountable and fire them?
RIP to the vet and his family.
There should have been a 911 call in this scenario somewhere.
“I’ve been a patient in the VA’s DC facility and my medical staff was excellent, but the administrative personnel didn’t give a rat’s ass about any patients. They were more interested in the social gatherings in the lobby or at the picnic benches outside. God forbid they be forced to look in the parking lot for a dead body.” ~Jonn
Pretty much EXACTLY this.
Some of the finest medical staff that I’ve ever met were at the DC VA Hospital, especially my neurologist (not to slight anyone else that cared for me, you were all fantastic). However, almost every single admin-staff that I had an encounter with was lazy, and made my experience horrible.
That could be said of Boston’s two VA facilities. Jamaica Plains & Roxbury. I couldn’t believe how lazy and inconsiderate the staff at both were.
The medical folks were all absolute professionals and I have no truck with them. But one example I’ll give should suffice.
My first visit there for to see the Retina Clinic prior to surgery I came off a 3.5 hour bus trip. I was standing by the elevators and this rather rotund woman of color stepped off. I asked her what floor the Retina Clinic was. She took my arm, pulled me about 15 feet to the hall, pointed down it and said the information desk was down there. She told me it wasn’t her job to be telling folks where things were. THAT was what the information desk was for.
Never mind that it was all the way down on the other side of the bldg. Fortunately a nurse heard me and told me what floor the clinic was on.
But that rotund woman was also barely capable of speaking understandable English. She had a thick island accent and one has to question WHY folks who are not proficient in speaking English are even hired there.
But yeah, I have never had any problems with the medical side of things. It has always been the bureaucracy that is so damned frustrating.
And the lazy fucks in Boston who are just mailing it in and waiting to collect a paycheck.
“…medical staff was excellent, but the administrative personnel didn’t give a rat’s ass about any patients.”
That’s consistent with what I have found by knowing folks treated there, people that work there and reports regarding the VA overall”
Interestingly the VA here on Ramsey in Fayettenam was rated by VA employees as the worst place to work in the entire VA system nationwide.
Is it too much to hope that the employees rate it low because the bosses actually expect them to do their jobs?
Sure….but the survey is online if you really want to look at it.
Tar. Feathers.
Ride through the chollas, bareback butt naked at the end of a rope…
The Texas/New Mexico version of tar and feathers!
I’ll go get a rope.
Or bobwire.
What does this indicate about the security at this facility?
No one tell our Amish friends about this…
Or the Angry Angelicans, or the Mad Methodists, or the Livid Lutherans.
Why do y’all keep leaving the Battling Baptists out? Bunch of razzists!
Speaking of the former director, he’s been “promoted”:
https://pjmedia.com/trending/2017/06/01/va-official-who-allowed-unsterile-instruments-lands-high-ranking-job/
DRAIN THE FREAKING SWAMP!!!!
My VA center has been having its security walk the parking lots twice a day and check each car in the lots before and after normal business hours. They have a golf cart they ride around in during the day and will pick you up and give you a ride if you have a cane or are “more experienced” in life.
The very idea that this is not common at all centers stuns me.
The DC VA Hospital has (or at least had) free valet parking. I don’t know about anyone ever riding around in golf carts offering rides like at other VA Hospitals prior to this incident. But then I wasn’t really looking for them either, I was using the valet service.
Whatever you do, don’t keep a firearm in your car if you use the valet parking.
Concealed Carry Laws at the state level don’t apply to federal institutions…
@ THUNDERSTIXX, Et Alii:
It is inevitable that one of these days, there will be a mass shooting in a Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, precisely because everyone is required to be unarmed and helpless prey for violent criminals.
Who’s going to stop the shooter?
The VA hospital at Togus, Maine, also has a large golf-cart type vehicle for parking lot shuttles. The driver will also take you to other buildings as well, since the facility is so large and spread out.
Here at my local VA, they do the same thing due to the fact that there are a dozen buildings on the facility, and it is a few acres in size.
They also have tunnels between the buildings in case of bad weather.
There’s a shuttle bus service at the VA center I go to. They’ll pick you up at a parking lot and deliver you to the front door.
The VA in Ft Wayne also has the golf cart guy. My disability is neurological and I can walk fine most times, so I declined his polite offer because there were WW2 and Vietnam vets there who would need it more than I, but this sweet old guy *insisted* he give me a ride to my car. Service with a smile.
In my town a body was found in the local WalMart parking lot. The body is suspected to have been there for 4 days. No one said a word.
http://www.floridatoday.com/story/news/2017/06/02/palm-bay-police-id-body-found-walmart/365210001/
Bodies in cars happen in places outside of the VA too. While in many ways it is easy to blame officials, management or employees, how many people walked past these two people who had expired in their cars without looking or saying a thing?
This type of thing is on all of us.
To be honest, between 1200 and 1300Z there is frequently a body in my car…
then I come back to the office.
The VA has their own police force at each facility. I have seen their vehicles parked in front of my facility every time I go there, so isn’t patrolling the grounds part of their job? Just wondering.
Do the bean-counters let them hire enough officers to man the facility?
Sometimes walking by and casually looking into a vehicle it can still be difficult to see someone slumped over on the seat.
With the tinting on car windows casual looking can miss stuff.
The sister knew the car, I am assuming, and was looking intently in it. How many other cars are in the parking lot at any point in time? How many other duties are the security officers pulling?
My ex-82nd AB, retired LEO brother has been head of a hospital’s security for some years now. Yesterday he underwent surgery to repair a shoulder damaged when he had to take down a psyc patient in the parking lot.
I don’t want to excuse, or sound like I am excusing, incompetent behavior, but there are a lot of factors I don’t know about this particular case. Did security get notified to search? If so, were they given a description of the vehicle? Were there other matters they had to deal with of a more immediate nature? Are they short-staffed? (The bean-counters are notorious about wanting to save money by not hiring sufficient security officers even when policy dictates a minimum number.)
I’m not inclined to dog-pile on this one without more information.
i hate going to that fucking facility. poor security, got old guys in wheelchairs just blocking the eay because nurses don’t care. Got people fighting on main floor entrance sometimes. just horrible.
No one ever dares to mention the racial factor, but when referring to the District of Columbia, it’s painfully obvious. I’ve been treated by Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Centers in Palo Alto, California, Biloxi, Mississippi, and Salt Lake City, Utah. I’m currently receiving EXCELLENT treatment from the George E. Wahlen Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Salt Lake City, Utah, and its Community Based Outpatient Clinic in Roosevelt, Utah, plus the Veterans Choice program. It’s now been several years since I lived in Washington, D.C., and I admit that time changes things, but this is how I remember it. Our nation’s capital, which should be America’s proudest showplace for all the world, is instead, a deadly and disgraceful embarrassment. Although I was never hospitalized or treated there, I once visited a patient at the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Washington, D.C. It was like walking into a prison, because of all the security, which is sadly necessary everywhere in the District of Columbia because of the racial factor that no one dares mention. When I was hospitalized as an emergency patient in the King Medical Center of the Armed Forces Retirement Home, located across the street from the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Washington, D.C., I learned that there were no standard personal hygiene items to be issued to patients being admitted in an emergency because the employees would steal everything. While bedridden, I and my blind roommate could hear the sounds of employees abusing patients. The population of Washington, D.C. is mostly black, although there is a growing segment of illegal aliens, who have gun battles with the blacks, and of course, the government of the District of Columbia is composed entirely of hostile blacks who openly hate white people. The sounds of gunfire and sirens are more or less constant in the District of Columbia. Murder is so common that it hardly gets mentioned in the local daily news, if at all. Most of the people killed or wounded in Washington, D.C., are innocent bystanders caught in the crossfire of gun battles… Read more »
the facility is near the good. But nothing spills into the facility in terms of criminals and assholes due to so much security. it’s right off Irving and gated technically.
Problem involves alot of mental patients and lack of staff. nobody wants to work for VA in terms of doctors anr specialist because VA gives them crazy ultimatums.
My experience with the VA in St Louis was..well…hysterical. After receiving 3 letters with the wrong info on each, I get a call with new instructions for my appt. Show up, still wrong. It took 5 people 2 hours to get the right appt info and send me to the correct place.
At the Fort Belvoir VA clinic I stood at the desk in front of two employees for almost 20 minutes without even having my presence acknowledged.
The VA needs to be completely ended. Sell the buildings and fire everyone.
We would be money ahead to just buy every honorably discharged veteran a good PPO plan or just give them all an annual subsidy with a catastrophic payment plan for inpatient care and let them see who they want.
The disability side would be the only remaining part and that could be streamlined down to about 100 people if they would join the 21st century.