Wrongful death lawsuits filed against former nurse accused of killing patients with insulin
Two more wrongful death lawsuits have been filed against a local healthcare facility after a nurse allegedly killed two patients and hurt nearly a dozen more with intentional doses of insulin.
Heather Pressdee, 41, is facing dozens of charges for allegedly administering lethal doses of insulin to 19 additional patients at five different care facilities between 2020 and 2023. Now the victims’ families want to make sure this doesn’t happen again.
>> Local nurse accused of killing 2 patients, hurting another with intentional doses of insulin
The wrongful death lawsuits were filed against Guardian Healthcare and its facility in Lower Burrell, Belair Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center. They were filed on behalf of the families of Jack Allen Rogers and Norman Paul Hendrickson and claim their deaths were directly caused by Pressdee, who was the facility’s former Assistant Director of Nursing.
The families’ attorney Robert Pierce filed the two civil wrongful death lawsuits against the facility that hired Pressdee as its assistant director of nursing back in April 2021.
“While in this position, she took a fondness to certain patients. Many of those patients health deteriorated quickly. This led to staff expressing concerns that Heather Pressdee’s patients were passing away at an alarming rate. Unfortunately, we know of 5 patients that passed away at Belair. We also know Belair failed to take the proper steps when these complaints came forward.”
Seventeen patients died under Pressdee’s care, the attorney general said. Some were diabetic and required insulin but some were not. Officials also said Pressdee would administer the insulin during overnight shifts when staffing was low.
>> Local nurse accused of killing patients with intentional doses of insulin facing more charges
Rogers’ family said in the lawsuit that during an overnight shift in November 2021, Pressdee injected Rogers, 79, with 100 units of insulin. He was neither diabetic nor prescribed insulin and died the next day.
Hendrickson’s family said in the lawsuit that during an overnight shift in February 2022, Pressdee injected Hendrickson, 88, with 100 units of insulin. He was also not diabetic or prescribed insulin. He went into acute respiratory failure and his condition never improved, requiring skilled nursing care until his death in December 2022.
Pressdee is accused of mistreating 22 patients in total, including the three involved in the previous charges. The victims were ranged in age from 43 to 104.
>> Lawsuit alleges nurse killed 3rd patient by administering fatal dose of insulin
Pressdee is charged with two counts of first-degree murder, 17 counts of attempted murder and 19 counts of neglect of a care-dependent person. The first-degree murder charges pertain to the cases where physical evidence is available to support the cause of death whereas the attempted murder charges pertain to the cases where the victims either survived the excessive dosage of insulin or the cause of death couldn’t be determined.
“How could someone go to 11 different facilities over 5 years and yet no one checked to see why Heather Pressdee was let go,” Pierce said.
The lawsuits claim Belair failed to conduct an appropriate background check on Pressdee, thereby creating a dangerous environment for the residents of the facility. They say Pressdee was terminated and/or forced to resign from six local healthcare facilities before being hired at Belair.
>> Former nurse accused of giving patients lethal doses of insulin has outburst in court
“To allow Pressdee’s behavior with residents to go unchecked, despite multiple concerns from staff, is unconscionable. Unbelievably, after a brief suspension, Guardian and Belair allowed her to continue to work at the facility and cause the deaths of at least five family’s loved ones. No one who trusts a facility with their loved one’s care should ever have to experience what these families are going through,” Pierce said.
In October, Pierce’s firm also filed a lawsuit for another victim at Belair, Marianne Bower.
Pierce said Belair should have never hired Pressdee in the first place because before that, she was terminated and or forced to resign from six healthcare facilities in less than three years as a result of abusive behavior towards residents and staff. He said the victims’ families want to prevent this from happening again.
“They all want to do whatever is possible to make sure each of these facilities changes their procedures and protocols so this doesn’t happen again and send a message so other medical facilities do something now to see if something needs to change so they don’t have to suffer like they are,” said Pierce.
>> Lawsuit alleges nurse killed 3rd patient by administering fatal dose of insulin
Channel 11 reached out to the Belair Healthcare Center but are still waiting to hear back. Pressdee’s attorney, Phil DiLucente, said they are reviewing the complaints. Right now, Pressdee remains in the Butler County Prison.
Anyone with information about these incidents or Heather Pressdee is asked to contact the Office of Attorney General’s tipline at 888-538-8541.
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