Family of Federal Way veteran settles VA suit for $700,000

Family of Federal Way veteran settles VA suit for $700,000
The family of a veteran whose suicide at the Veterans Affairs hospital on Beacon Hill in 2006 helped expose unsafe conditions in the facility's psychiatric ward has settled a lawsuit against the government for $700,000, according to court documents and the family's attorney.

By Mike Carter

Seattle Times staff reporter

The family of a veteran whose suicide at the Veterans Affairs hospital on Beacon Hill in 2006 helped expose unsafe conditions in the facility's psychiatric ward has settled a lawsuit against the government for $700,000, according to court documents and the family's attorney.

Gordon Whitcomb, of Federal Way, had a history of psychiatric disorders when he admitted himself to the VA hospital in November 2006 because he was hearing voices and was paranoid and delusional, according to the lawsuit.

The 49-year-old veteran had been discharged from the military in 1987, had a 100 percent service-connected disability for chronic psychiatric problems, and had been treated at the hospital before, according to the family's attorney, John Greaney, of Kent.

For two days, according to the lawsuit, staff in the psychiatric ward documented that Whitcomb was delusional, paranoid and at serious risk for suicide. He was hearing voices and said his neighbors were plotting to kill him. Twice on Nov. 9, the lawsuit said, nurses put notes in his file saying that Whitcomb was suicidal and delusional.

Yet, the staff never took away his belt. Just hours after the last note was written, he hanged himself with the belt on a non-breakaway shower bar in a bathroom, Greaney said.
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Family of Federal Way veteran settles VA suit for $700,000