Iraq Veteran's Mom Suffers After Son Died In VA Miami Rehab

A Mother’s Guilt And A Veteran’s Unexpected Death
CBS Miami
Jim DeFede
April 28, 2014

MIAMI (CBSMiami) – Early one morning last year, Mary Zielinski received a call from the VA hospital in Miami telling her that her son was dead.

“I was in such shock that I gave him the phone,” she recounts motioning toward her boyfriend, Agim Banushi. “And he was like, `Who is it?’ And I said, `It’s the VA calling. They’re telling me that Nick’s passed away.’”

Nicholas Cutter survived fourteen months in Iraq, yet he couldn’t survive the rehab center designed to help him. No one told her at the time, but Cutter died of a cocaine overdose.

Zielinski had pushed for Cutter to go to the residential rehab program. When he came back from Iraq in 2010, Cutter was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. He had trouble being around people; was angry and easily agitated.

He had been attending counseling sessions at the VA center near his home in West Palm Beach, where the doctors had him on more than 20 different medications, according Zielinski and Banushi.

“He was taking upwards of 50 pills a day,” Banushi said.

“These are some of his medications,” Zielinski said, flipping through a large binder.

The pills, however, weren’t helping. His nightmares grew. Afraid to sleep he began using cocaine to stay awake at night. His doctors in West Palm suggested he come here to the residential drug program in Miami – it was supposed to be one of the best. But he didn’t want to go and leave his mother behind.

Zielinski recalled how she talked him into going.

“I specifically told him, `Do you trust me honey?’ And he said, `Yes mom I trust you.’ And I said. `This program will help you.
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