Non-emergency ventilation
Victim and family told it is just to “give the lungs a rest”.
These testimony clips are drawn from interviews conducted by CHBMP with families and survivors. Each clip stands as evidence and remembrance. We share them to honor those who came forward, to seek accountability, and to ensure these experiences are never forgotten.
“"As soon as he was put on vent, palliative care started coming in and bothering us. We even said we do not want palliative care. They continued to come in and started suggesting that we do a DNR to protect his good heart as they were wanting to harvest when this was all done. Again, we kept telling them we do not want palliative care. They continued. Every every day, somebody would come in acting all caring and trying to push for a DNR. Later several weeks later, a doc different doctors would walk in and say, he sure is a tough old guy. Meaning, what was taking so long for him to die?... Because Scott and White is a teaching hospital, They were experimenting and just trying to make excellent insurance, and I don't know what else to add.”
From the testimony of Sammie Hosch
“"some of the nurses made comments to me, and other people have since said the same thing, that putting the patient like that on the ventilator was a death sentence that, so few of them ever got better.”
From the testimony of Ed Hodges
“"And their loved ones were just being rushed onto ventilators. And, you know, once you've got a a whole intensive care unit and and everyone in there is a in a coma and on a ventilator, You know, I know it sounds cynical, but, that's probably the easiest, care that that that they have to give.”
From the testimony of Ed Hodges
“"And, he explained to me what what that meant. And and he said that, you know, they do that, for the patient's safety because, some patients when they are, intubated on a ventilator will, will fight the ventilator and and they could thrash around.”
From the testimony of Ed Hodges
“"And consequently, he was on a ventilator for thirty days. And, not everybody knows this. I did not know this at the time. But when they put you on a ventilator, they put you in a coma, like, medically induced coma. And they also paralyze you, which was just shocking and and frightening to me to hear that. And no one was explaining to me what that what this all meant.”
From the testimony of Ed Hodges
“"I know that some families suspect that their loved ones died of unnecessary ventilation... in fact, my mother did end up with that and was septic at the end.”
From the testimony of Carolyn Carroll
“"No. Just really unusual, I would call, nontraditional behaviors that we had witnessed... that was kind of suspicious to us.”
From the testimony of Carolyn Carroll
“"you wouldn't normally put somebody on a ventilator who's speaking and is you know what I mean? Like, it's you'd you'd put them on a ventilator for they can't breathe on their own.”
From the testimony of Carolyn Carroll
“"So that same day as after we get that phone call from that nurse and after we go to the hospital, they put them on my they vent my dad... around five in the morning... they're saying that he's coding.”
From the testimony of Constantine Kotsanis
“"after that, when he was finally admitted, they started treating him with remdesivir. ... they were already talking about ventilating him. ... they put him on the ventilator.”
From the testimony of Daniel Scott Reynolds
“"in front of his bed on a great big whiteboard were the words comfort care so that he could see them every day that he had been there. ... but remdesivir does all things to kinda things to your body, and I think they had already done what... they did vent him, and we had had to leave. ... but when when we asked if they could vent him, of course, they get more money from venting him, but, they jumped on him. I mean, they literally jumped on him. One was on top of him, and two were on the sides. And I cannot imagine how scared he was because I it scared me just watching that, and I they were they were pushing us basically out of the room.”
From the testimony of James Bradford McDonald
“"I told the doctor specifically this was a result of the COVID nineteen, vaccine, the Pfizer vaccine that he had. And the doctor did not wanna hear it. He said he must have tried to swallow a pill, and, he must be suicidal. And I said he's absolutely not suicidal... we had a DNR on him... and that was something that I know Dan did not ever wanna be on a ventilator, but he was already on a ventilator.”
From the testimony of Daniel Van Ackeren
“"The doctor tried to persuade us to persuade Claire to be intubated, and then, they started giving him that medication... I said to him no. We agreed that we would not do that.”
From the testimony of Clare Wiersma
“"He felt that Claire needed to be intubated, and Claire had told him, no. We researched that. We're not going to do that.”
From the testimony of Clare Wiersma
“"...And then, that night, they said, your mom is asking to be put on a ventilator. And I said, nope. My mom's not coherent. I haven't heard from her. If she's not able to even text me, she's not making those decisions. She's I don't believe she's even awake.”
From the testimony of Mary Brion
“"I had never thought in a million years that Enloe could have a remdesivir murder until I met this woman. And her story is exactly like we hear on every week's call. Husband goes in for COVID. He's kinda fine, hooked up to a ventilator, perfectly healthy. Ten days later, he's dead.”
From the testimony of Julie Williamson Threet
“"Well well, she was going in a total renal failure, number one. Number two, she couldn't use her legs anymore. They were she, had no strength in her legs. I'd never seen anything like it...she stopped eating, stopped taking her meds because she had to take meds for blood pressure and her diabetes...and then ended up coding and, then was intubated for four months.”
From the testimony of Ann Hogan
“"the next thing they were recommending was a ventilator after five days of varsitnib and remdesivir didn't help her. Of course not. The the the full on oxygen was drowning her.”
From the testimony of Kathleen Schwab
“"They would not do CPR on him if he had heart failure if he was not intubated. And I'm like, how are you gonna do CPR on him when he's intubated? [...] they would not even perform CPR on him if if his oxygen levels dropped to a certain level and he started coding. So that's what led to the intubation. [...] they gonna get paid to do that, pay a lot of money.”
From the testimony of Phillip Thomas
“"Yeah. They had they had told me that, his oxygen was he was down to fifty percent ventilation.”
From the testimony of Gerald Lee Shirar
“"And I feel that she could have been saved then. Me and her children feel that the hospital killed her just like everyone else. The protocol they did wasn't necessary, and they shouldn't put her on the ventilator. But once they took her off, I had to make the decision. I was her proxy. And they're like, she's not gonna live without it. It was the hardest, hardest thing to do. And I spoke to my family about it, and we all agreed. But once they took her off, the nurse called me back and said she only lasted, like, two minutes, and then she died.”
From the testimony of Donna Bamundo
“"Wednesday morning, doctor called. Those doctors were negligent for the whole thirty or forty years. They knew my mom, giving her four Xanax a day. Wednesday, doctor Danka calls and says, I had to put your mom on a ventilator because if I didn't, she would have died an hour ago. I'm like, she was fine Monday.”
From the testimony of Janet T. CICCONE
“"They paralyzed my vocal cord with the ventilator.”
From the testimony of Charlene MacCallum
“"the nurse came in and said that he's trying to breathe on his own against the ventilator, so we have to paralyze him... how much suffering did he endure? How much pain was he going through? How afraid was he? He couldn't communicate anything with us.”
From the testimony of Ronald J. Wenzel