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.

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.

"This was a clear case of the VA failing to protect this man," said Greaney, who represents Whitcomb's wife, Vanessa, and his five stepchildren. "He went there looking for help."

Greaney said he conducted a yearlong investigation before filing the lawsuit in January. It was settled last week, just eight months after it was filed.

"Given the risks of litigation, it was decided that it was in the government's best interests to settle this case," said Emily Langlie, the spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Seattle, which represented the VA.

Jeri Rowe, a spokeswoman for VA Puget Sound, said Tuesday she did not have permission to discuss the settlement.

Whitcomb's suicide prompted a critical internal audit of the VA Puget Sound's psychiatric facilities, which recommended that the hospital replace fixtures like the shower bar Whitcomb used to hang himself.

However, those recommendations were not implemented until after the Chicago-based Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Health Care Organizations preliminarily failed the Beacon Hill hospital and VA facilities at American Lake near Tacoma and in Bremerton, finding their psychiatric wards posed "a serious threat to public or patient health or safety."

Since then, "Units have been remodeled, upgrades have been made and new procedures have been put into place to meet the Joint Commissions requirements," Rowe said in an e-mail. "We worked collaboratively with the Joint Commission to resolve concerns regarding these standards in 2007." The VA came under sharp criticism from Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., among others in Washington, D.C., who had secured substantial boosts in the VA's budgets for mental health as the system dealt with a crush of soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Rowe said the Beacon Hill hospital has since regained accreditation.

Mike Carter: 206-464-3706 or mcarter@seattletimes.com