On August 31, a Quality of Life staff member finds a 73-year-old male patient convulsing in his bed.
With no history of seizures and according to his medical chart, he was given medication ten minutes before the seizures began. The Post Gazette reports the man is rushed to Butler Hospital, where doctors discover hypoglycemia behind the seizures, but the patient is not diabetic.
Treating doctors believe the only way this patient’s blood sugar could have plummeted to that extent is if someone had given him a massive dose of insulin. The attending physician gets the man stabilized and he recovers.
About six weeks after the 73-year-old man ends up in the hospital after having seizures, another resident, a 55-year-old, is admitted to the hospital to be treated for a urinary tract infection. While in the hospital, nurses discover he too, is hypoglycemic.
His blood sugar is stabilized. Nearly 4 weeks after leaving the hospital, the 55-year-old male patient is back at Butler Memorial Hospital, his blood sugar so abnormally low that medical staff are suspicious.
WTAE Reports Investigators say the man’s pre-existing medical conditions would prevent him from administering the insulin himself, it would have to be done by someone else. Three hours later his 83-year-old suitemate at Quality of Life Services is admitted with the same symptoms, hypoglycemia. Both men ultimately die.
While the initial investigation was sparked by suspicions of improper administration of insulin as the cause of the untimely deaths of two patients, coworkers sent the inquiry in a co-worker’s direction, Heather Pressdee.
Heather Pressdee, 40, is now facing charges of homicide, attempted murder, aggravated assault, neglect of a care-dependent person, and reckless endangerment in connection with the deaths of a 55–year-old man and an 83-year-old man, as well as the injury of a 73-year-old man. The Attorney General has said 17 patients cared for by Pressdee, died.
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[Feature Photo: Heather Pressdee/Police Handout]
