Atlanta VA Ranking Dropped

Atlanta VA quality drops to one of the worst in the nation
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
By Willoughby Mariano
Sept 28, 2018

Troubles at the Atlanta VA persist despite years of reform attempts because department heads are slow to change, said Bob Teets, a U.S. Marine veteran who serves on the Atlanta VA director’s advisory council. These physicians are more concerned with preserving their reputations than alerting top administrators to problems, he said.

The Atlanta VA Medical Center’s quality rating fell to one out of five stars, ranking it among the bottom of VA facilities nationally, according to new data. Last year, it earned three stars. Photo: Phil Skinner

Atlanta’s VA Medical Center now ranks as one of the worst in the nation after the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs latest national assessment of hospital quality, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Channel 2 Action News have learned.

The Decatur-area hospital’s overall quality rating fell from three stars to one — the lowest in the VA’s five-star ranking system. This means that Atlanta’s VA is among the lowest-scoring 10 percent of the department’s 100-plus medical centers nationwide.

A June Inspector General audit found that the hospital has the highest staffing shortages of any VA hospital in the country. The hospital was short 89 positions, including neurologist, pathologist, psychologist and nurses slots.
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Atlanta Restaurant Turned Away PTSD with Service Dog

Vet, service dog turned away from Blairsville restaurant 
My FOX Atlanta
By Deidra Dukes, FOX 5 reporter
Posted: Jul 28, 2015

Jason Champain says, "Just because you can't see the disability on the outside, we have a disability on the inside."

ATLANTA
Nate's a great comfort to Army veteran Jason Champlain on a day like Tuesday, when he was visiting Zoo Atlanta with his family.

Jason Champlain says, "The dog has helped me tremendously."

Champlain has Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD.

Champlain says, "I deal with anxiety, depression, nightmares and so on I mean I could just keep going and going and going."

But his life took a turn for the better earlier this year when he received Nate, a service dog.

Champlain says, "He can already sense when I'm having an anxiety attack or depression he'll actually jump in my lap and help calm me."
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Disabled Veteran with PTSD Humiliated at Atlanta VA Hospital

U.S. veteran left with weeks-long erection after given sleep medication at VA Hospital: attorney 
Edward Stalling was not only left impotent but a laughingstock among doctors at the Atlanta VA Medical Center after taking a single day’s dosage of antidepressant Trazodone in October, his attorney told the Daily News.
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
BY NINA GOLGOWSKI
Monday, January 5, 2015

Trazodone, according to Weill Cornell Medical College's Department of Urology, has an "uncommon side-effect of prolonged erection" that occurs in approximately one out of 10,000 to 20,000 users.

A U.S. veteran being treated for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder was instead left with a weeks-long erection after prescribed a sleep aid by a VA Hospital, his attorney claims.

A single dosage of antidepressant Trazodone in October was enough to not only "disfigure" Edward Stalling but leave him completely impotent and a laughingstock among the doctors and nurses at the Atlanta VA Medical Center, his attorney told the Daily News.

"They treated him as some kind of spectacle to be viewed," Attorney Jonathan Johnson said of the former service member's treatment.

"One had mentioned that I should line up all the women," Stalling recalled a doctor's alleged jest to CBS46. "I haven't had that many people who had seen it in my whole life, until I went to that hospital."
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Atlanta Veteran Shot At During Attempted Carjacking

Gunfire narrowly misses veteran during attempted carjacking
WSB TV 2 Atlanta
September 28, 2014

ATLANTA — A local veteran, who just returned home from war, is now dodging gunfire in his own neighborhood.

Jonathan Knight has been shot at before. The veteran spent five and a half years in the military. But he never thought he'd put that training to use while sitting in his car behind the building where he works in northwest Atlanta.

Knight says he wasn't willing to let his brand new Ford Mustang go without a fight.

He says he was sitting in his car listening to music around 6 p.m. Sunday when two men in a blue Jeep Grand Cherokee approached.

“The driver asked me for directions. So I attempted to tell him and he pretended not to hear me, so he pulled up right next to me, very close. I could tell he was trying to block me off,” said Knight.
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Veteran with H1N1 arrested at civilian hospital?

Veteran says he was arrested, kicked out of Grady Hospital
WSB-TV 2
August 28, 2014

ATLANTA — A veteran claims he went to Grady Memorial Hospital with serious flu symptoms and security guards kicked him out and called police to arrest him. Grady officials say their investigation tells a very different story.

The man now plans to sue Grady Hospital for the treatment he allegedly got from security guards.

Byran Jones said he battled swine flu earlier this year.

"My whole internal system was being destroyed, which is why I couldn't hold food, I was weak, headache, nausea," Jones said.

He said it was so bad he went by ambulance to Grady Memorial Hospital.

"I was trying to catch my breath, I collapsed on the stretcher. When I collapsed on the stretcher, a guard came over told me to get up," Jones said.

Jones, an Air Force veteran said he told the guard he couldn't walk. He claimed that's when Grady guards dragged him out.

"I was punched, kicked repeatedly while I was on the ground," Jones said.

Security personnel called Atlanta police, who arrested Jones on a breach of peace charge. Days later, another hospital diagnosed Jones with H1N1 flu, also known as swine flu.
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Iraq Veteran fights off robbers in Atlanta

Army Veteran fights robbers in midtown Atlanta
WSBTV News
July 11, 2013

ATLANTA — Police are stepping up security after a string of armed robberies in midtown Atlanta.

On Thursday, Channel 2's Amy Napier Viteri talked to a victim who fought back.

Residents in midtown have experienced five robberies in five days. One of the victims said he was walking on Sixth Street near Juniper Street, heading to his car when two young men pointed guns at him. That was just moments after the same men robbed someone else, police said.

“These people knew exactly what they were doing,” said the victim who spoke to Viteri.

He didn't want to appear on camera and asked Channel 2 Action News to call him by his last name, Ali. He said he was leaving dinner with friends just after midnight early Tuesday when he heard two men running behind him on Sixth Street.

“I thought they were going to keep running past me. When they didn't run past me, I turned around, and I just see two barrels of two weapons staring at my head,” said Ali, an Army veteran who served in Iraq.
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Data shows VA fiscally sound despite mismanagement

Data shows VA fiscally sound despite mismanagement
By Scott MacFarlane
WSBTV.com
May 29, 2013

WASHINGTON — Despite the scandal over a series of deaths at the Atlanta VA Medical Center, a review by Channel 2 Action News shows the hospital isn't short on cash.

The federal government is being strangled by a budget crisis, except the VA and its medical centers nationwide, including the VA medical center in DeKalb County.

Data provided to Channel 2 Action News sources show the Atlanta region's VA offices got a $100 million funding increase for 2013.

There were similar boosts nationwide, perhaps a necessity with so many new veterans needing treatment, after a decade fighting two wars.

How are they using the money? At least some is being earmarked to reduce the crushing backlog of veterans' claims.

The VA told Channel 2's Scott MacFarlane it's setting aside money for overtime pay and extra claims officers to reduce the waits.

A spokesman for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs told Channel 2, “Under the leadership of Secretary Eric K. Shinseki, the Department of Veterans Affairs has increased Veterans’ access to earned care and benefits, reduced the number of homeless Veterans by 17 percent, and implemented an aggressive plan that eliminates the decades old compensation claims backlog in 2015.”
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Veterans' suicide deaths blamed on VA mismanagement

Veterans' deaths blamed on VA mismanagement
My FOX Atlanta
Posted: May 06, 2013
By Trey Thomas
ATLANTA

Charges of mismanagement at the Veterans Administration Medical center in Decatur brought a key lawmaker to town on Monday.

Florida Rep. Jeff Miller, the chairman of the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs, talked to managers at the Atlanta VA Medical Center after a VA audit blamed mismanagement for the deaths of three veterans.

"I think the words that I used were, 'If I find out after I leave here that you have lied and not told me the truth, I will make the very ground that you walk on shake,'" Miller said.

The VA Office of Inspector General report says a lack of effective patient care management and program oversight caused problems with mental health care access for vets.

Georgia Rep. David Scott says it's unacceptable.

"Lack of tracking that have caused three of our veterans to commit suicide. We are determined to do everything we can to cut down on the high rate of suicide among our veterans," Scott said.
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Iraq Veteran Robbery Suspect Received Poor Care from Atlanta VA

Mother: Robbery Suspect Received Poor Care from Atlanta VA
Sy Smith was charged this week with assaulting an elderly man and stealing his car.
By Jonathan Cribbs

The mother of an Iraq war veteran accused of beating and robbing an elderly man said she believes the Atlanta VA Medical Center did not properly treat her son's post-war mental disorder.

Sy Smith was charged this week with assaulting a Korean War veteran and stealing his car. He was treated at the medical center for post-traumatic stress disorder following a suicide attempt, according to wsbtv.com.
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Marine, celebrating birthday hit by Gucci Mane for wanting picture

It was the Marine's birthday on top of everything else. He came back from Afghanistan in October. Now he has ten stitches in his head.

Gucci Mane Arrested After Allegedly Assaulting Soldier With Champagne Bottle
ABC News
By Kevin Dolak
Mar 27, 2013

Rapper and actor Gucci Mane had been arrested in Atlanta on assault charges after he allegedly hit a photo-seeking soldier in the head with a champagne bottle at a nightclub.

The rapper, whose real name is Radric Davis, turned himself in to police and was booked at the Fulton County Jail Tuesday. He was expected to go before a judge this morning. It’s unclear whether he has entered a plea.

Mane, 33, who plays a gang kingpin in the new movie “Spring Breakers,” was in the VIP area at the Harlem Nights club in Atlanta March 16 when a soldier approached the area to have a photo taken, according to ABC affiliate WSBTV.
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This is the report from before he was arrested.

Price Middle School Shooting

It will be interesting to read about what type of weapon he used. If it was not a high capacity assault weapon, then it will prove the point that people do stand a chance to stop a gunman with equal weapon.

UPDATE February 1, 2013
Price Middle School Shooting: Wounded Student Recovering After Fellow Teen Opened Fire
By KATE BRUMBACK
01/31/13

ATLANTA — A student opened fire at his middle school Thursday afternoon, wounding a 14-year-old in the neck before an armed officer working at the school was able to get the gun away, police said.

Multiple shots were fired in the courtyard of Price Middle School just south of downtown about 1:50 p.m. and the one boy was hit, Atlanta Police Chief George Turner said. In the aftermath, a teacher received minor cuts, he said.

The wounded boy was taken "alert, conscious and breathing" to Grady Memorial Hospital, said police spokesman Carlos Campos. Grady Heath System Spokeswoman Denise Simpson said the teen had been discharged from the hospital Thursday night. Campos said charges against the shooter were pending.

Police swarmed the school of about 400 students after reports of the shooting while a crowd of anxious parents gathered in the streets, awaiting word on their children. Students were kept at the locked-down school for more than two hours before being dismissed.

"The obvious question is how did this get past a metal detector?" Davis asked about the gun. "That's something we do not know yet."

The armed resource officer who took the gun away was off-duty and at the school, but police didn't release details on him or whether he is regularly at Price. Since 20 children and six adults were shot to death at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut in December, calls for armed officers in every school have resonated across the country.
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Original report

Price Middle School Shooting: Multiple Injuries In Attack At Southeast Atlanta School
Huffington Post
Posted: 01/31/2013

Police responded to a shooting at Price Middle School in Atlanta early Thursday afternoon, WSBTV reports.

Authorities say that multiple people, including a 14-year-old boy, were wounded, according to Fox News.

Police said the teen was shot in the back of the neck and immediately transported to Grady Memorial Hospital for treatment, 11Alive reports. The boy was reportedly awake and responsive while being transported to the hospital, and the injuries are non-life threatening.
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Search for missing boy leaves two Atlanta Police Officers Dead After Crash

Atlanta Police Helicopter Crash Kills Two Officers During Search For Missing Boy
By GREG SCHREIER 11/04/12

ATLANTA — A low-flying police helicopter scanning a bustling neighborhood not far from downtown Atlanta for a runaway 9-year-old boy suddenly plummeted to the ground and exploded, killing both officers on board but leaving those on the ground unharmed.

Federal authorities are investigating what caused the aircraft to descend into power lines, knocking out electricity to some residents nearby in the district filled with shopping plazas, fast food restaurants and homes. The boy was found safely a couple of hours after the helicopter crashed late Saturday night. Atlanta police spokesman Officer John Chafee said Sunday that the boy ran away after being scolded by his mother and was later found wandering on a city street.
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Deceased WW2 veteran helps Vietnam vet get new home

Deceased WW2 veteran helps Vietnam vet get new home
Posted: Aug 17, 2012
By MYFOXATLANTA STAFF
ATLANTA

This week Habitat for Humanity is building a special home in Ackworth. Victor Alvarado, who will be the new owner of the home, is a disabled veteran. The home couldn't have happened without the generosity of the volunteers as well as a special person who donated the land.

Piece by piece, dozens of volunteers are putting up a home for Victor and Myriam Alvarado. The project is fulfilling the dreams of not one, but two veterans' families.

Col. Ashley Ivey served for 31 years. He was shot down during World War II, and after he retired he wanted to donate land to help build a home for a disabled vet. Unfortunately Col. Ivey died this year, but his family and the folks from Habitat for Humanity worked together to make his wish a reality.

"It's hard to stand here and not cry, because I know he'd be so thrilled," said Ivey's niece, Beth Hoeve.

Alvarado was injured stateside while serving in the US Air Force during Vietnam. He heard from his church that Habitat for Humanity wanted to build a home for a disabled vet, and he couldn't believe when he was chosen.
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Five reported dead in Georgia flooding

Five reported dead in Georgia flooding
Story Highlights
NEW: Girl who was swept from father's arms is among those killed

At least four other people missing in Georgia; one presumed dead in Tennessee

300 people in Trion, Georgia, evacuate homes amid fears levee might fail

Hundreds of roads closed, official says; more rain expected before finally ending

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Georgia creeks and rivers, swollen by days of rain, burst their banks Monday, and at least five people were killed in flooding in the state, officials said.

At least four others were thought to be missing, said Wes Tallon, spokesman for fire and emergency management services in Douglas County, west of Atlanta.
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http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/09/21/southeast.floods/index.html#cnnSTCText

Vernon "The Viper" Forrest Killed In Southwest Atlanta

Pro Boxer Shot, Killed In Southwest Atlanta
Posted: 9:18 am EDT July 26, 2009
Updated: 12:03 pm EDT July 26, 2009

ATLANTA -- Professional boxer Vernon "The Viper" Forrest was killed in southwest Atlanta Saturday night during an attempted carjacking.

Channel 2 Action News reporter Ashley Hayes was the only reporter at the scene following the shooting. Police told Hayes that Forrest stopped at a gas station to put air in the tire of his Jaguar when he was approached by two men.
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http://www.wsbtv.com/news/20181806/detail.html
linked from CNN

Suicidal woman, mother who called police die in shootout

Suicidal woman, mother who called police die in shootout
Story Highlights
Barbara Baker died at the scene; daughter, Penny Schwartz, 51, died at hospital
Baker had called police, said Schwartz was trying to shoot herself, police say
When officer arrived, Baker said Schwartz had said she wanted "police to shoot her"
Pair shot after Schwartz pointed gun at officer, police say

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- A 75-year-old suburban Atlanta woman who called police for help died in a shootout between the policeman who responded and her suicidal daughter, police said Wednesday.

Barbara Baker of Duluth died at the scene Tuesday night, and her daughter, Penny Schwartz, 51, died overnight at a hospital, according to the Gwinnett County Police Department.
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Suicidal woman, mother who called police die in shootout

Disabled veterans swimming with the sharks

Shark swim helps vets feel whole again
An innovative program at the Georgia Aquarium is helping disabled veterans feel free

Swimming with sharks helps veterans feel whole again
Story Highlights
Fish Wish program allows veterans with disabilities to swim with sharks

Program is open to the public, but waiting list is long and cost is $290

Veterans report feeling "equal" in the weightless environment of water


By Judy Fortin
CNN Medical Correspondent

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Retired Army Spc. Scott Winkler had many scary encounters while serving in Iraq, but they were nothing compared with his recent experience at the world's largest aquarium: swimming alongside a massive whale shark.

The fact that Winkler, 35, of Augusta, Georgia, is a paraplegic made the once-in-a-lifetime experience even more challenging.

"It's like you're in space," Winkler said. "It's like you're an able body again. It makes you feel so free."

Winkler was paralyzed five years ago during an accident while unloading ammunition in Tikrit, Iraq.

He is one of more than two dozen disabled veterans who have participated in the Fish Wish program at the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta during the past two months.

A separate swim and dive program is open to the public, but the waiting list is nearly full until the end of the year.

The experience isn't cheap. A half-hour dive costs $290. The veterans swam for free.

Therapeutic recreational specialist Susan Oglesby helps train safety divers at the aquarium to assist swimmers with disabilities. She explained there are very few limitations in the tank. Watch more on veterans swimming with sharks »
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