2 more wrongful death lawsuits filed against Lower Burrell care home where alleged killer nurse worked
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- Two more wrongful death lawsuits have been filed against a Lower Burrell care home that employed a nurse later charged with killing patients with insulin.
Heather Pressdee was charged last May with the deaths of two patients and the hospitalization of a third at Quality Life Services, a skilled nursing facility in Chicora. She was later charged with administering excessive doses of insulin to 19 more patients at five different care facilities between 2020 and 2023.
While she worked at Belair Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center in Lower Burrell, the lawsuits allege she caused the deaths of 79-year-old Jack Rogers and 88-year-old Normal Hendrickson. Lawyers for their families say Pressdee confessed to giving them excessive doses of insulin.
The lawsuit accuses Guardian Healthcare and Belair Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center of failing to conduct an appropriate background check on Pressdee. When other Belair employees became suspicious of Pressdee and voiced their concerns, the lawsuit alleges Belair's administration disciplined the nurses and allowed Pressdee to continue in her role of assistant director of nursing.
Before Pressdee was hired by Belair in 2021, she had been fired or forced to resign from six other health care facilities over a period of less than three years, the families' lawyers say.
Rogers was an Army veteran and Purple Heart recipient at Belair for long-term care. His family said he wasn't diabetic, but Pressdee injected him with insulin on Nov. 14, 2021, and he died the next day. After he died, the family said she sent them a memorial tile engraved with his name.
Hendrickson was a former steelworker who was admitted to Belair after a brief hospitalization for COVID-19. His family said Pressdee gave him insulin in February, even though he wasn't diabetic, and he went into acute respiratory failure. Hendrickson was taken to the hospital, where he remained in critical condition for weeks. His family said he never recovered and died in December.
Robert Peirce and Associates filed the lawsuits on behalf of the families. They previously filed a wrongful death lawsuit for the family of Marianne Bower.