S.O.S. (Stories of Service) - Ordinary people who do extraordinary work
From the little league coach to the former addict helping those still struggling, hear from people from all walks of life how they show up as a vessel for service and drive for transformational change. Hosted by Theresa Carpenter, a 29-year active duty U.S. naval officer who found service was the path to unlocking trauma and unleashing your inner potential.
S.O.S. (Stories of Service) - Ordinary people who do extraordinary work
Lauren Palladini’s Fight for Justice in Military Medicine | S.O.S. #208
“It doesn’t matter, you can’t sue anyway.”
From Battlefield to Birth Trauma: Lauren Palladini’s Fight for Justice in Military Medicine
This week’s guest, Lauren Palladini, is a former paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division whose life took a harrowing turn—not on the battlefield, but in a military hospital. At just 22 years old, Lauren experienced a catastrophic case of military medical malpractice during childbirth at Womack Army Medical Center. A lacerated uterine artery was left undiagnosed and concealed, leading to weeks of life-threatening hemorrhaging, multiple emergency surgeries, and a permanent hysterectomy.
But Lauren refused to stay silent.
In response, she co-founded Coalition of Heroes, a nonprofit organization dedicated to confronting medical malpractice in the military. The Coalition works to raise awareness, educate the public, and advocate for the voices of those harmed by preventable errors within the military healthcare system.
In this powerful episode, Lauren shares her story of trauma, resilience, and advocacy—and why she’s determined to spark lasting reform.
In This Episode, You’ll Learn:
• What happened during Lauren’s traumatic childbirth experience & the chilling words of those who were charged with her care
• The systemic issues behind military medical malpractice
• Why accountability is so difficult to achieve in the military healthcare system
• How Coalition of Heroes is helping victims and driving change
• What civilians and veterans alike need to know about this often-hidden issue
Mentioned in This Episode:
• Womack Army Medical Center
• Coalition of Heroes (cofounder)
• Military medical justice and reform efforts
Connect with Lauren Palladini & Coalition of Heroes:
Website: https://www.coalitionofheroes.org/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coalition_of_heroes?igsh=azVtNHVsOTZxOTY=
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/1CSWVDpkpC/?mibextid=wwXIfr
Subscribe & Review:
If Lauren’s story moved you, please share this episode, leave a review, and help us spread the word. Every voice raised brings us one step closer to justice.
Visit my website: https://thehello.llc/THERESACARPENTER
Read my writings on my blog: https://www.theresatapestries.com/
Listen to other episodes on my podcast: https://storiesofservice.buzzsprout.com
Watch episodes of my podcast:
https://www.youtube.com/c/TheresaCarpenter76
imagine six years ago was supposed to be the best time of your life. You're getting ready to have a baby, you've started your family and you go to get a C-section in a military hospital and the next thing you know, a complication happens and you are not told until many, many, many, I think, weeks or even months later what the problem was and what really happened. And that's the story we're going to tell today, and one of what I would say is one of the grossest abuses of military medical malpractice that I have heard of. So, lauren Palladini, how are you doing today? I'm good, thank you, thanks for having me Well. Thank you so much for sharing your story.
Speaker 1:As I always start these podcasts, these podcasts are in my unofficial off-duty capacity and the views and the opinions expressed on this podcast are those of the host and the guest alone and not on behalf of any other entity. Welcome to the Stories of Service podcast ordinary people who do extraordinary work. I'm the host, teresa Carpenter, and as I always start off these podcasts, we're going to get an introduction from my father, charlie.
Speaker 3:From the moment we're born and lock eyes with our parents. We are inspiring others by showing up as a vessel of service. We not only help others, we help ourselves. Welcome to SOS. Stories of Service hosted by Teresa Carpenter. Hear from ordinary people from all walks of life who have transformed their communities by performing extraordinary work.
Speaker 1:And Lauren Palladini. She is a former paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division whose life took a harrowing turn not on the battlefield, but in a military hospital. When she was just 22 years old, she experienced a catastrophic case of military medical malpractice during childbirth at Womack Army Medical Center. A lacerated uterine artery was left undiagnosed and concealed, leading to weeks of life-threatening hemorrhaging, multiple emergency surgeries and a permanent hysterectomy. But she refused to stay silent and in response she founded Coalition of Heroes, a nonprofit organization dedicated to confronting medical malpractice in the military. The coalition works to raise awareness, educate the public and advocate for the voices of those harmed by preventable errors within the military healthcare system. And today we're going to talk about her story of trauma, but not only trauma, but of resilience and advocacy, and why she's determined to spark lasting reform. Welcome again, lauren, thank you. So I always start off these podcasts with where were you born and raised and what inspired you to originally join the military.
Speaker 2:So I was born and raised here in San Antonio, Texas, where I still currently live, and I don't have any particular reason as to why I joined the service. I think growing up I didn't have something that I knew I wanted to do. I really struggled with that, especially after high school. I chose to take a year off after high school and just chose to work and then I lived out on my own for a year and was kind of just lost, I would say. And I come from a family of military service members and we call him my uncle, but he is actually just my stepdad's best friend and he was a recruiter here in San Antonio at the time and he just said come into the office. And I did, and I signed a contract and joined the military as a 25 uniform.
Speaker 1:So what is a 25 uniform?
Speaker 2:for those who don't know what that is yeah, it's a signal support system specialist, so just communications.
Speaker 1:Okay, and how long were you in the military?
Speaker 2:I was in the military a little over, I would say like four and a half years. I joined in 2016 and then got out in the middle of 2020, right after the COVID pandemic broke out.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you were still in the military in 2019 when this happened.
Speaker 2:I was. Yes, I was an active duty service member at the time. Okay.
Speaker 1:And leading up to this incident, we're going to just kind of go back to sort of where you were at that time and how life was at the 82nd Airborne at Fort Bragg, and what did you think at that time about your military career, being a new mom and trying to balance the two of those?
Speaker 2:You know, I truly had the best time serving in the military. I I loved it through and through. Um, everyone was kind of surprised when I chose to go, cause I'm super girly, love hair and makeup, but I also like love to be outdoors and, um, I don't know, I love a challenge and so I feel like I really thrived. And it wasn't originally in the plan to go into the 82nd airport division. That was something that kind of just happened when I was in AIT. I just they were like, hey, we're looking for service members and, um, my now husband but he was my boyfriend at the time, we had met in basic training actually, but he was in um Fort Huachuca and I was in Fort Gordon and he was airborne and I I was like, well, if I go airborne, maybe we'll get stationed together, cause everyone goes to Fort Bragg, you know they're airborne. So I, you know, signed it online in AIT and went to airborne school and that's how I ended up at Fort Bragg and I loved it. I truly did. I had the best leadership, I was in a wonderful unit. I truly did enjoy it.
Speaker 2:And then I found out I was pregnant. We weren't exactly trying, but we weren't not trying either. It was kind of one of those things where if it happens, it happens trying, but we weren't not trying either. It was kind of one of those things where if it happens, it happens and and it did, and so I got pregnant in 2018. And I had still planned to stay in I was actually thinking about re enlisting and we were looking at duty stations and we were trying to come here to Fort Sam so I could be closer to family and and then all of that obviously changed when I had a really traumatic birth, which ultimately took a huge toll on my health, not only physically, but mentally. And then, obviously, everything that happened after that, which we'll talk more about. But while I was in the service, I loved it through and through. It truly was some of the best years of my life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would say the same too for myself, so I totally understand. I would say the same too for myself, so I totally understand. It's definitely something that I think everybody who is watching this podcast or who has been in the military understands what an honor it is and how much we grow and gain from those experiences. So, leading up to this birth, was there any red flags or any signs that you were going to have anything other than a routine C-section?
Speaker 2:No, so I mean early on, when I found out I was pregnant, I was, I was a little scared, just because I mean, even if you go right now onto Womax like Google, you know the reviews are are awful, they are, and obviously I had heard some stories and I was. I was pretty nervous early on and I actually had asked if I could get a referral to get off post care and they had denied it because that's an active duty service member. You don't get a choice, or at the time I don't know that that's changed in the recent years but at the time, in 2018 to 2019, I did not have a choice as to who my health care providers were, because I was active duty and so they had said if you want to get off post care, you're gonna have to pay for it. Other than that, you're gonna have to go to Womack because that's where I was stationed and that's where you know TRICARE would cover my health, the health insurance cover and so I was like okay, and I really didn't have a bad experience.
Speaker 2:I was really sick. I had hyperemesis throughout my pregnancy, but that's. It's really is just like long morning sickness. It kind of just never went away, but other than that I had a healthy pregnancy, you know, baby healthy. I was healthy and I was actually past my due date. And I was like a week and a half past my due date and so it was real early in the morning and my water broke and I was like, okay, let's go, you know, to Womack. And there were some red flags throughout that process, but I was like it's okay.
Speaker 1:Like, for example, yeah, tell me a little bit about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they, they couldn't figure out how to put the monitors on me when I was in so much pain, and so I said I want to go get in the water, and in our room we had a shower and I was in so much pain. They'd had me on Pitocin and so not only was I having, like my natural contractions, but I was also having. I was on Pitocin, which is a medication they give to increase the contractions to help, you know, labor go along. And they couldn't figure out how to put the monitors on my stomach while I was going to, you know, get in the water, the water monitors. And so my husband's on Google trying to figure it out, and so there were red flags like that. But for the most part, you know, the first nurse that I had before the shift change, she was just wonderful, she truly was like she was running around like crazy. You could tell that she was probably the best nurse on the floor. Um, but anyways, we had a shift change and then throughout the night, um, I had just become in more and more and more pain and my labor was not progressing, like I wasn't dilating further. And my mother had come in. She had flown in from San Antonio, so she had finally got there.
Speaker 2:So at this point it was my mom and my husband in the room with me, and in the early hours of March 19, it was about like six, I guess I would say like four in the morning I was just in so much pain and I said I feel like something's not right. My heart rate was high or, I'm sorry, I was starting to run a fever. My daughter's heart rate was high, so she had fetal tachycardia and I started getting an infection, and I said I would like to just have a C-section. I was in so much pain and I had had an epidural at this point, and so it just didn't feel right. And the only thing I can say is I just know my body and I felt like something wasn't right, and so it was around 4am that I had said hey, you know, I want a C-section. And that's when they said we don't have someone on the floor to perform a C-section at this time, and I remember my mom being really caught off guard by that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's not a typical answer that you would know, so, but you would think that at all times they have somebody who's qualified to do a C-section, because a C-section could happen at any time, there could be complications and this would need to happen. So that is a huge the thing you said earlier. I don't know. I mean I wouldn't. If I were you, I would probably say well, oh well, if they just didn't know how to do something okay. But the yeah that was definitely a red flag.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And so the yeah that that was definitely a red flag, yeah. And so I they just kept telling me like just just wait, you know, you're gonna keep trying to progress, we're gonna continue with the Pitocin. And so it was about like two hours later they came in and they said there's been a shift change. You know, what would you like to do at this time, and everyone in the room was kind of against me having a c-section, but I I wasn't progressing. At this point I was already past the 24 hours since my water had broken. I was, you know, starting to have an infection. I had choreo, which is just an infection during, you know, labor, and again my daughter's heart rate was high. And so they said, okay, we have someone now who can perform the C-section. I said okay. Then they kind of just went and got the OR ready. We went in and we had the C-section.
Speaker 2:During the C-section, the only thing I can really remember is I just remember looking at the anesthesiologist. I told him. I said I'm kind of scared. He was up on the right side of me, my husband was on the left side of me. He goes, you're going to do okay. The anesthesiologist was so sweet and he was like rubbing my shoulder and I just remember looking at him saying I'm going to pass out, I'm going to pass out. And he just said, just stay with me, just stay with me.
Speaker 2:And then I threw up and then, as far as I knew, you know, they had, you know, removed my daughter and they had taken my daughter to the room. I didn't have the opportunity to meet her in the room. Um, the reason why is because I was hemorrhaging, which I didn't know at the time as this was happening, but I had hemorrhaged during my C-section, which is why I was feeling like I was going to pass out and then, I guess, vomited. Because, um, I was hemorrhaging. A normal cesarean section loses about like 500 cc of blood and I had like 1700 of blood, ml of blood. So I had had almost three times more than three times or, I guess, two to three times the amount of blood loss than what is normal. And we didn't know this at the time, I didn't actually know this until I was discharged, but, um, so we didn't know anything had happened.
Speaker 2:Oh, go ahead.
Speaker 1:Sorry, I was just going to say so they, so they bring your child to you um at some point after you wake up from the surgery. Is there any thing that you notice that's a miss at that point?
Speaker 2:The only thing that I remember is they had taken me into the room and at the time my mother was holding my daughter her name's Everly and, um, my mom just said, you know, she's so strong when they gave her an IV in her hand, she didn't cry and I just, I was shaking, it was all the medicine. So we, I just held, you know, they had held her on my chest and we were just there, you know, just enjoying like the newborn bliss, yeah, just bonding. And then, a few hours later, they had moved us over to the mother baby unit and at that time that's when the doctor had come in and said you know, you lost more blood in your C-section than normal, but, um, everything should be good. You know, we're going to monitor you overnight over the next two nights, whatnot?
Speaker 1:Well, you know, just kind of like the reassuring you that you know nothing, nothing, nothing too too crazy had happened, right Okay.
Speaker 2:And, um, they said you know we're going to give you I guess this was a day of discharge. They came in so I'd had my daughter on a Sunday, and at this point this is a Tuesday now and they'd come in the room and they said you know, we're going to give you an iron transfusion and then we're going to go ahead and discharge you, which I mean I had. Looking back, I'm like I should have advocated more, I should ask more questions, but I just I didn't know better. I, I trusted them. I that's the only thing that I can say is I trusted them.
Speaker 1:You wouldn't have known. I mean, these are all like medical things that you wouldn't really know to even ask.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so I had no idea. But they actually sent me home with the seven hemoglobin, and I guess the normal for a postpartum mom is 12 to 15. So I had had, you know, lost a significant amount of blood loss and so, but all they said was going to give you an iron transfusion which is supposed to help your body, you know, you know, reproduce your blood over you know a rapid time. And so they sent us home and, other than like just being in pain from a C-section, I really had like no complaints. We were in newborn bliss, my mom and my husband were there, my sister had flown in as well, and so we were just kind of enjoying like life as it was. We had really had no idea that anything had gone wrong, other than we had been told that I had lost blood in my significant amount of blood.
Speaker 1:So you go home and after a few days, what? What starts to happen.
Speaker 2:Yes, I was discharged on a Tuesday and then on a Friday morning we were actually supposed to have newborn photos done and it was in the early morning that, you know, I'd woken up, I had fed my daughter and then we were kind of just taking, like you know, our morning nap, and early that morning I had passed a blood clot and I didn't think that that was normal. It looked abnormal to me and this was around seven in the morning and I it was a pretty big blood. Well, I think it was big just because I'd never passed one before. I don't know that a medical provider would look at it and be like, oh my gosh, but for me I was like this is kind of weird. So I went and looked at my discharge paperwork and it didn't say anything about, you know, if you pass a blood clot or anything. So I was like, okay, well, you know, I guess that this normal. I think even at that point we had called the hospital just to make sure and they said, no, like everything, everything should be fine as long as, you know, you're not bleeding through a menstrual pad within an hour.
Speaker 2:And so we had gone for a morning nap and I had woken up and when I, when I woke up, I had felt wet, like it felt like you know, the bed was wet and I just looked at the blanket and I there was just blood everywhere. And so my mom and my sister were in the guest bedroom with my daughter and my husband was in the room with me. I we actually have a photo, cause my sister had come in and taken a picture of my husband and I asleep, um, which we didn't know, but I was actually bleeding in that photo. We had no idea, um, but I jump up and I run to my bathroom and I'm just screaming for my mom. I'm like mom, mom, and you know she was my daughter, so taking her a few seconds to come in.
Speaker 2:And then she came in and everyone just started screaming call 911, call 911. My mom and I were just rocking she was just rocking me like this, and then I started to pass out, and so they laid me down and EMS had come and the firefighters had come and everyone, like the look on their face was just, I'll never forget it. They looked like they didn't know what to do, and so when they got there, my blood pressure was like 30 over 60. Like I was obviously in critical condition and I remember them calling WOMAC on the radio saying you know, we have this patient, critical patient, and they said take her to Cape Fear, because Cape Fear was a trauma hospital, which is the civilian hospital in Fayetteville, north Carolina. And so they did, and they'd taken me to Cape Fear.
Speaker 1:And then at that hospital tell us a little bit about what happened there. So what did they tell you was was wrong.
Speaker 2:So we had no idea that anything had happened at this point. So they were ultimately treating it as a normal postpartum hemorrhage, which I think normal. You know, there's not really anything normal about a postpartum hemorrhage, but they are common. And so they treated it as if I had, you know, either like retained placenta, um, things like that. And so they at first did a DNC and then they had put in a backery balloon and had given me a blood transfusions and the backery. The DNC is to clean everything out. The backery balloon is to apply pressure to the uterus so that if there's any bleeding, you know, you put pressure on a, on a bleed, it stops. And, um, they had removed the back-free balloon about 24 hours later, and when they removed that I had begun hemorrhaging again. And so at this point they went back in and they were going to do an, you know, did another DNC and they were going to put in another back-free balloon.
Speaker 2:But at this point, that's when they had realized, well, they had come to us and said you know, we believe that she's bleeding from her uterine artery.
Speaker 2:And so then they had said you know, we need to take her in and do a uterine artery embolization, which is where they go into the femoral artery in my leg and they go and find the bleeding artery, and what they did is they put a gel foam at this time. So the gel foam was to basically I guess I don't know how to explain it, but it's a gel foam that they put in the artery to stop the bleeding, and the idea is that over the span of like two to three weeks the artery would heal itself is ultimately what we had been told. And so at this point, when I was in surgery, they had told my parents. They said you know, we believe that her uterine artery was damaged in her C-section and you know, this is what we need to do to repair it. And so that was the first time we had found out that it had been a complication of the C-section.
Speaker 1:How did you feel at that point? I mean, were you conscious enough to understand that there was a mistake that could have been made? And now you're dealing with something that's much bigger than just normal postpartum hemorrhaging.
Speaker 2:I had you know was taken back to my room and when I woke up there was a woman there from WOMAC and she said my name is so and so and you know I'm with WOMAC as a as a patient advocate, did you?
Speaker 1:and you did you call this person or nothing? Okay so, they just, they just showed up.
Speaker 2:Okay, we have no proof of this, but well, me, my legal team, my attorneys, my husband, my parents, what we've all come to the conclusion just being six years in and we're like, and we've been told like, how would Cape Fear have known that there was damage to the artery? Because they there's no way to see that unless you're on, like it's called an angiogram or something. Basically, it's like a scan to find the bleeding from the artery and the only thing that we have been able to come up, the only conclusion or scenario that makes sense is that the treating physician at Cape Fear was also a treating physician at Wilmette Garmin Medical Center, meaning she knew the doctors who had performed my C-section, and we believe that there was a phone call made between the two doctors.
Speaker 2:And that is what I believe prompted Wilmette Garmin Medical Center to send the patient advocacy to the room, and I remember her. She said I'm here from you know, wilmette Garmin Medical Center patient advocacy to the room, and I remember her. She said I'm here from you know, womack Army Medical Center patient advocacy. If you have any plans to file like any legal, you know whatnot, I cannot speak with you and at this point I am fresh out of surgery. We had no like. We are just at this point I'm trying to survive, to go home to my baby. I wasn't even thinking about anything legal.
Speaker 1:Like your mind isn't even there at all. That's what's just so crazy to me about the story is that that's like one of the things that she leads with.
Speaker 2:That was the very first thing she had said to me and you know, following that, when I was sent home, I had, the one thing I requested from her was was a meeting with all of my doctors. It was also at this time that we had found out that my daughter had a brachial plexus injury. And we found this out while I was in the hospital because my sister said you know, she doesn't move her arm and it goes back to.
Speaker 2:If you remember, my mom said right, she didn't cry when she got the IV and she's not feeling because they had damaged the nerves in her shoulder when they pulled her out during my C-section. My point is that it was just.
Speaker 1:it was so sloppy from top to bottom the entire delivery, everything and the fact that you were not informed of this, the fact that you went to another hospital and there was never any mention of this happening when you had your daughter. No, okay, All right, so now you're out of this hospital? Okay, so you're talking to the patient advocate. She says I can't talk to you. If you plan on suing, then what happens?
Speaker 2:Well, at the time, you know, I didn't even know, I didn't think about suing, like I'm just, I'm trying to just go home, I'm 22. Like, looking back now, I was such a baby who had just had a baby, who was now in the hospital, terrified because I had just gone through all of this hemorrhaging and bleeding and blood clots, and I, I just wanted to go home healthy, and so that was my priority. And so I, I was sent home and things were good. I, I did feel really good. We did have the meeting, um, because I okay, how do I explain this? So we had a meeting. They said all of nothing.
Speaker 1:They told me nothing. Oh, the meeting where you said you said I want to have a meeting with all of the physicians and all the people who were part of my care team to find out what happened. And so you go to Womack hospital for this meeting and what?
Speaker 2:happens at this meeting. Well, the one doctor who is the one who damaged my uterine artery is the only doctor who didn't show up to this meeting and they really just kind of played dumb. They had no idea what happened. They're so sorry. They're here to support me moving forward, and my attorney actually just and they put it as I think it was 120-minute meeting and the only notes they documented were four sentences from a 120-minute meeting.
Speaker 2:Did you tape that meeting? I didn't, and again, at this time, I just wanted answers. What I truly was looking for in that meeting was am I okay? Am I going to be okay, moving forward? Do I have to continue to worry that something's gonna happen to me? Like I truly just wanted to know that I was okay. There was never anything about suing or legal or nothing. Like I just wanted to know that I was okay and so, no, I didn't even make notes. I really went into this meeting just completely like I just wanna have a conversation so that I can move on.
Speaker 2:And then, following that meeting, it was about two and a half, three weeks later that I was at home. We had just, you know, gone out for the day, my father-in-law he rides mountain bikes, and so we had gone to the bike show or the bike store. We had come home and I was in the laundry room and I had reached up to do to grab detergent, to do laundry, and I just felt a rush like a and I ran to the bathroom and I just told my husband it's happening again. It's happening again, and what they had told me to do the first time it happened was just to lay down and rub my abdomen, and so that's what we did. Ems came and ultimately it was happening all over again.
Speaker 2:The artery was just bleeding again and I was taken back to Cape Fear Valley where, again, I had had a few procedures and I had had another uterine artery embolization which has a very great success rate, like 98% success rate. So we had no reason to believe that this wouldn't work. Success rate. So we had no reason to believe that this wouldn't work. But within 45 minutes of that surgery I had hemorrhaged excessively to the point that I was actually taken down to the next step. Down from ICU, I was put in a private room where I was just given a ton of like estrogen shots and all of this medicine to try to stop the bleeding. And as soon as I came off all those medications, I had begun hemorrhaging again, and ultimately, at this point, the only thing left to do was to have a hysterectomy. And so I'd had a. I had my daughter on March 19th and I had my hysterectomy on April 21st.
Speaker 1:Oh, my God. And you knew, obviously, when you get that hysterectomy, that that would mean that this was going to be the only child that you were going to be able to birth for the rest of your life.
Speaker 1:And at that point did you start to think to yourself shoot, a mistake has happened. And now and I'm not getting I mean the fact that they sent a patient advocate to the hospital and is, as a couple, guests. So we do have, uh, on the show, we have Mandy. Mandy fight, she says hi, friends. And then, and then DA says advocate, no, that's so-called advocate was an operative sent to do damage control. And Mandy said of course, breaks my heart, it does, it breaks my heart too. It pisses me off. Actually, as I'm hearing it, I just getting mad. Um, so the the advocate comes. So the advocate comes, the staff, they do their explaining. You have the hysterectomy First off. How did that make you feel, knowing like, oh shit, this is now going to have lifelong consequences.
Speaker 2:I didn't want a hysterectomy, which is why that was like the very, very, very last option for me. I really truly meet not only me but my doctors at uh, Cape Verde Valley. We tried every single thing. We did DNCs, back-free balloons, uterine artery invocations not just one but two. We tried shots. I mean, we did everything that we possibly could do.
Speaker 2:Um, but it was truly for death in my situation, and so at that time, I'm like I would rather live with my one child than be dead and her grow up without a mother, and that, at the time, was truly like my biggest fear was I just wanted to live, Like I wanted to survive and go home and enjoy my daughter. Like that was my goal at the time. And following that I you know, when I was discharged from the hospital, the first time I was I would say okay, as okay as one could be after going through that. But like I I was, I wasn't having panic attacks, I was totally fine. But the second one was so awful there was so much bleeding, so much hemorrhaging that I that is when my mental health really, really declined. That's when I started having panic attacks. I mean, we were in the ER almost every other night in the month of May. That's when I had started seeing a psychiatrist. I just was. I was scared to sleep because I had blood. So many times in my sleep I woke up bleeding, so it was just. That is really when I started to struggle with my mental health was after my hysterectomy, and so that's when I really dove into my health and like seeing doctors and therapists, and I had actually gone back and seen the same doctor who oversaw my C-section, who saw the whole thing, and I had actually seen her for a couple months after. And, looking back on it, the only thing that I can tell myself is that I think that there was so much guilt at what happened, and I think she knew what happened, and so it was in May.
Speaker 2:So I had my daughter in March, had my hysterectomy in April and this was in May. Me and my husband had an appointment with her, with a doctor who was a lieutenant colonel at the time. She was the one who overseeing my C-section and we had walked into that and I just wanted answers. I was so terrified. I had been told that I had. Well, what I had was an ABM and artrovenous malformation of my uterine artery, which was a result of it being damaged in my C-section. But when you Google those things, it's like you know, people have brain aneurysms and it's ultimately the same thing. Mine just happened in my uterine artery and it was a result because of damage.
Speaker 2:Um, but I was just terrified. I was like, is it going to happen again? Like if I ever, like, get in the car accident and I have to have surgery, am I going to? You know, is this going to happen to me again? I was so desperate for answers that my husband and I had sat down with with the doctor and I said I just want to know what happened. And she looked at my husband and I and she said something happened with Dr you know the doctor who did the damage. And she said something happened with Dr you know, yeah, and you're not and it's okay if you don't want to give names.
Speaker 1:Cause I know you're still in the legal proceeding.
Speaker 2:So something happened with this doctor, totally With Dr X and then, she said, and I had to take over. And then she looked at my husband and I. She kind of paused and she said it doesn't matter, you can't sue anyway, and that's such a oh.
Speaker 1:that makes me so mad when I hear that that's such a cold thing to say to somebody. And that was how in the world do you say that to someone when they're just trying to get answers?
Speaker 2:I just wanted answers. I truly, and at this time this was 2019. And I that, leaving that meeting, I remember my husband and I just looking at each other and I, you know, I, I'm upset. It looked like she wanted so badly to just say what happened, but she couldn't and we had left that, and I do you think that when she said I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:I just want to really hone in on this, because the fact that somebody in the military said that to you, do you think she said that in a way of well, it doesn't matter because unfortunately you can't really sue anyway? Is that how she said it? Or did she say you get what I'm trying to say? Was she kind of just like trying?
Speaker 2:to just tell you like unfortunately, there's just nothing you can do about it. I don't think that she was trying to be like disgusting and mean. I think that she was telling the truth and it is the truth. I think that she genuinely was just like I the.
Speaker 2:What I took from it is I want to tell you, but it doesn't matter because you can't sue, so me telling you it's not going to do anything for you.
Speaker 2:That is how I had taken that and that is the problem is that there's doctors in the military who know that there is no accountability if they do something wrong. Therefore, they are sloppy, they don't care, they don't have to tell you if they do something because there's no accountability, there's no consequences, there's no consequences to their mistakes because we don't have rights. But I didn't know that at the time. When she told me that my husband and I went into you know, we got in the car and I started calling attorneys and you tell them that you're an active duty service member. They tell you look up the Ferris Doctrine and that was the first time I had ever heard of this now 75, 76-year-old doctrine that prevents service members active duty service members not just active duty, but service members from suing the federal government Service members who are activated even so service members who are reservists, who are on active duty orders and, by the way, this doesn't just apply to medical malpractice.
Speaker 1:I mean, there's people who have suffered from sexual assaults and, unfortunately, because they can say it was incident to service or the person did it while they were on active duty, there is no rights or no recourse for active duty service members to do anything about it. If a wrong has been committed upon you, you have absolutely no rights and no red dress, and it makes me rethink any of the. Luckily, I've only had one shoulder surgery since I've been on active duty, but once I learned about that, I was like if anything were to happen, I would never get surgery again on active duty because you have no recourse if something goes wrong, absolutely, absolutely. So once you understood this and you started talking to attorneys, tell me a little bit about what happened with you getting your attorney and a little bit about what that journey was like.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so this was in May of 2019. So at this point, this is when I had been turned down by a few attorneys that said you know, unfortunately, you know you're active duty, there's something called the Ferris Doctrine. There's no legal recourse for you. You know, we're so sorry and and honestly, I just obviously I was upset because something happened and now I don't have my fertility, but I tried to just put it aside and just I just wanted to move on, if I'm being honest, and focus on my mental health, focused on my daughter. And but again, I, because you're active duty, you have to continue to see these doctors, and so my only, you know, for followups and C-section followups and whatnot, I had to continue to see this doctor.
Speaker 1:The same doctors that messed up the surgery. You couldn't even opt to see another. Now did you ask, or at that point you were probably just so flustered that you just, and you knew that they at least knew your case. So you were probably just like you know what I'll still see them, even if they did this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I didn't trust them. I didn't allow them, you know, to perform surgery on me, but they did know my case. They knew obviously more than I did at the time. Um, they were hiding it from me, Um, and so I'd gone. I continued to see them and it was later that year that, um, my unit had moved me to the warrior transition battalion, which I think now is called the soldier recovery unit. But they had moved me to this unit just to focus solely on my health and getting better and healing Um, cause I had nerve damage in my leg and you know so many mental health. I mean, it was awful. It was the worst year of my life, Um, and how was your daughter doing, by the way?
Speaker 2:And she's great. She's great, she's recovered. Well, you know, we took her to some specialists in Charlotte and, um, she's doing great. She really is doing so good and we've tried to protect her as much as we can from everything that has happened and she really does live the best life. So she's doing wonderful. But it was in later that year, in 2019.
Speaker 2:I I had asked if they would cover my IVF so that if I wanted to have kids in the future, that that would be available to me to freeze my eggs, because obviously I had a hysterectomy and I did have my ovaries at the time. But they had told me, like within five years, you're going to start to go into menopause and whatnot. And so the doctor at the time said, yeah, we're going to go ahead and submit this to DHA you know, defense health agency and we're going to try to get this approved for you. And as far as I'd known, it had got approved. I was this was late in the year and so it was like over Christmas break and I was like, you know, starting January, we're going to go in and we're going to start our classes and we're going to start the medication and we're going to start the whole IVF process and at the same time, I had came across an article about a Green Beret service member at Will McGonagall Medical Center who had a misdiagnosis of stage four lung cancer and there was now a bill in his name that would allow service members not to file suit but to file claims for compensation yes, under the Richard Sayskull Act, which was in the 2020 NDAA, and this was the first time I'd ever heard of it, but it really didn't cross my mind to even go down that path even at this time, if I'm being honest.
Speaker 2:But come January, after the bill got passed, I got a phone call from the doctor who said your IVF is no longer being covered or paid for. They've withdrawn that. And, looking back, it was because there is now a claims process that I could file, you know, a claim if I wanted to, and so the claims process have to do with the fact that you still should have gotten some recourse for IVF, since you couldn't yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean we had, you know, the WOMAC, the commander of the hospital involved. I mean, it was not a little issue. We reached out to Congressman Hudson. He's the congressman of North Carolina. He's still in Fayetteville, North Carolina. He still is. We were not quiet about what had happened. We were very loud towards the end. So when they denied my IVF, that's when I said I'm calling this attorney, and it was the same attorney who represented Richard Seiskal and Natalie Kawam, which so many people know as it relates to this issue, and they accepted my case and filed my claim. I contacted them in January 2020. They submitted my claim by June of that same year.
Speaker 1:June 2020.
Speaker 2:Okay, my claim by June of that same year and for up until January 10th of last year, she represented me, represented my case and, as far as I had known, things were fine. My case was progressing, they were investigating, they had medical experts involved. I really thought that everything was fine. And January 10th of last year I had been in contact with another service member. His name is Des Delbarba and his story is so horrific. But he is also a victim of military medical malpractice and his mother is just an incredible advocate for him. She also helped co-found Coalition of Heroes. We've gone to the Hill advocated together. She's just wonderful.
Speaker 2:But her and I had been in contact and she said you need to demand answers from your attorney, you need to demand an update, where does your case stand, so on and so forth. And so I did. I had briefs out to her and I said I want answers where what is going on? And they said I get an email, not a phone call. I get an email from, like, an assistant attorney telling me your claim has been denied twice. It was denied in November 2022 and denied again in April of 2023. And I didn't find out about those denials until January 10th of 2024.
Speaker 1:Why? What was their reason when you contacted them and got this update finally in january of 2024? What was their reason for not letting you know that you were denied november? Because if they submitted it in june, so they got their first notification of denial in november of 2020.
Speaker 2:Then no, so they they submitted it rather, so it was about two years later that they had received my first denial so it took them so two years later, so that's when you should have number one.
Speaker 1:That's what I mean. You should have been notified in november of 2022 that you were denied and you were not notified and then notified they. What did so then they? Filed it. They refiled it without you knowing, yep.
Speaker 2:Refiled an appeal without me knowing. Yeah, they didn't even actually file an appeal. I had received a second denial because they failed to file the appeal and the reason was is that they couldn't find a medical expert to defend my case? It's not that they couldn't find one, is that they didn't look for one, if I, if I'm being honest, but in other words, she completely handled my case terribly, not just mine, but several hundreds of other service members, and I was so upset I had asked her a phone call. I got nothing, nothing. But in those years I had reached out every other month for updates. I had asked where does my case stand.
Speaker 1:I was going to ask you were they constantly keeping in touch with you? Other people from the law firm they would never keep in touch with me.
Speaker 2:It was me always reaching out to them, and the person who I had spoken to as the point of contact throughout my whole case was Richard Stayscall's wife, megan Stayscall. And again, up until I found out that my case had been denied. They kept saying it's under investigation. You know, we're just waiting. We're in a waiting period right now, everything's great. No, it wasn't great. I'd actually received two denials and my case was closed.
Speaker 1:And so, following this information, I just want to back up real quick. Did you ever try to reach out to Natalie personally, Like, did you try to write her? Did you try to write anybody and say why did this happen? How did this happen?
Speaker 2:I had reached out. So, following this, no to answer your question. No, because my point of contact was Megan Spaceball. That was who works for Natalie, that is who was my contact, the attorney, who's no longer with their firm. I had only ever spoken to her one time and that's when she was telling me that my case had been denied twice, and so with this information I said I am terminating you as my attorney. I want a letter of termination. Like you are no longer representing me, and I had, because at this point I know that I was going to DC.
Speaker 2:Komni had helped me get a meeting with the general counsel of the army she's no longer there, but at the time was honorable Carrie Ritchie and I got a meeting and we went to DC, met at the Pentagon and I had my meeting with her in April.
Speaker 2:So I found out about my denials in January of last year, went to DC and met with Honorable Carrie Ritchie in April and I guess March, end of March, and during this meeting I obviously she was so respectful, just so kind. She let me just tell my story she listened to my case, she was just such a genuine person and she allowed me to talk, and then she looked at me and said you know, I want you to know that we pulled up your file, we found that there was an administrative error made in your case and we are allowing you the opportunity to appeal, and it felt like just the largest, like weight off my shoulder. And so following that meeting, you know we'd gone to the Hill, advocated and then went home and I just I just started calling all these attorneys who I you know who I wanted on my case and ended up with one of the best attorney that I could imagine, who's still my attorney now.
Speaker 1:Okay, so that's the silver lining is that Honorable Carrie Ritchie did the right thing and said all right, we can see that these appeals, this appeal process, didn't work properly. Let's go ahead and give you this opportunity to appeal and tell me about, like, some of the challenges that you faced during the appeals process.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean challenge, challenge, you know, door slammed in my face numerous times. But my attorneys who took my case it's a Henley law here in Wolverty, texas, spring Branch, up the road but they're amazing, incredible, the best attorney that I could imagine, just the best team. But they hired medical experts. Obviously they didn't just hire an OBGYN, they also hired an interventional radiologist. They hired the best experts that you possibly could to represent a case like this and we filed my appeal in August of last year. We received another denial in October of last year, basically just saying that the standard of care was met, following that appeal, with no other information. You know we don't get anything other than either we found a breach in the standard of care or we did not, and so we quite literally oh, so they don't have to say, like how, the standard of care we get one page letters.
Speaker 1:So, oh, this is crazy. So they don't have to. So that doesn't even help your experts, Because if you have experts that say the standard of care was not met, this is not proper medical procedures, then how in the world are they to know what criteria was used for? So this tells me the claims process is one big fat frigging joke. If all they can do is say oh well, the standards of care weren't met. Nope, and you had medical experts that said that the standards of care were not met.
Speaker 2:I had imaging showing my bleeding, damaged artery. I had imaging showing it and they still say you know, no, sorry Now. Well, now they don't say that. So let me backtrack.
Speaker 2:So my first two denials they denied me because they said there's no way that her uterine artery was damaged. If it was damaged she would be dead. You know all these things they just said. They hung their hat on the fact that it's just not possible. And when we received my denial in October of last year, we were obviously I was so upset and I said I want a meeting with the Secretary of the Army and I reached out to their office and I got a meeting with her.
Speaker 2:On December 9th I went to DC with my attorneys and we met with her and they kept saying you know, she had uterine atomy, had uterine atomy. That's what they would hold my hang their hat on is there's no way the artery was damaged. It's uterine atomy. It's, unfortunately, there's what to say again. They say uterine atomy and it's when your uterus doesn't contract and it's it's just a blanket diagnosis when they can't figure out any other diagnosis, and it is something that happens when your uterus doesn't contract. That wasn't the problem in my case, because all the medications that they had given me would have treated uterine atomy and I didn't. I didn't have uterine atomy. I was never diagnosed with uterine atomy. It was not in my medical records. But you know what was? It was the fact that I had an intrapartum injury to my right uterine artery.
Speaker 2:That is in my medical records, I have the imaging and they still say no, you know that didn't happen. But their medical expert, who had denied me twice, now conceded his opinion last year and said actually her uterine artery was damaged so you had to change a heart. You had to change a heart, but you know we didn't breach the standard of care. The standard of care was still met.
Speaker 1:And no justification for how the standard of care was met. And have you done I'm sure your lawyers have done this, or the civilian doctors who've looked at this if this had happened in a civilian hospital, what would have happened?
Speaker 2:Well, one of the things that my attorney and I always talk about is, throughout the claims process, there's no discovery. We don't get to talk to the doctors, we don't get to see their records, we don't get to question them, we don't even get to know who their medical experts are that they're hiring to defend their side. They have to know who our experts are, what they're qualified in, their names, their information, everything. But we don't get to know anything about them Other than, like, the only thing that I know is that one of their experts that they've just hired is in Air Force OBGYN Reserve or something like that. I don't know their names, I don't know their rank, I don't know where they went to school. I don't know anything other than the fact they're in Air Force OBGYN, which apparently is supposed to validate their opinion when an Army Lieutenant Colonel, obgyn is the Lauren, you are amazing.
Speaker 1:Keep fighting. This is pissing me off listening to this again. I'm sorry this is not resolved yet. Da again just says this mess is crazy as hell. How did they not notify? Uh, the standard of care was met. Please give me a break. Uh, really, uh. Mark Hoffman says uh, the standard of care was met. Are you kidding me? And then Jean, uh Courtney, uh.
Speaker 1:Sal Cito says I can hardly listen to this as a woman, infuriating. I can hardly listen to this and I've never had a baby. I just this just blows my mind that this is the claims process and that was the reason why I wanted to have you on the show. I've had Staff Sergeant Carter, whose case made it all the way up to the Supreme Court and was denied, by the way, and his case was different. I mean, he's now paralyzed as the result of his uh, back surgery gone wrong. Uh, and yours is different because you went through the claims process and I really wanted to kind of dig into what this claims process means. So now, okay, your doctor has a change of heart, but the standard of care was still met. Okay, so now, what? What's, what's next? What?
Speaker 2:happened. Yeah, so well, when they had denied me. They didn't tell me anything about why they denied me, other than that the standard of care was met. But my attorneys had found you know, I don't know the legal terms, my attorney can speak so much better at this than I can but they are obligated to tell you, um, or give you the the medical expert reports. They are obligated by law in the regulation, that they have to get that to you. And they withheld that to me.
Speaker 2:And so when we had gone to DC and met with the secretary of the army, we said we want those records. If they're finding that the standard of care was meant, that's fine. Sure, show us, show us the receipt, show us to the receipt. And that's when we did receive it. We left her office One. We were told we would have it before we met with her. We did not. We received it about three hours after we left the Pentagon at the airport on the way back to San Antonio. And that's when we had found out that actually he conceded his opinion but just also still said that the standard of care was met.
Speaker 2:And so in this we were given the opportunity to file a rebuttal, because at this point, my case is still with the Army and we were under the impression like, look, we were told by the Secretary of the Army, the Army has denied your case. It is now moving up to DHA, the Appeals Board Okay, great. So we were like, all right, we're going to file a rebuttal based off of this information that we now have and we left her office on December 9th. We filed our rebuttal on December 20th or around that time and we thought at this point that it was in DHA's hands.
Speaker 2:Well, come January we found out after the army read our rebuttal, where my attorneys quite literally destroyed their medical expert and proved our case within what the regulation allows. The army then went again and hired another medical expert. Since their medical expert conceded his opinion, they hired a new one and, long story short, it's like battle of the experts. At this point, there's no third party handling any of these claims. The person or the institution who commits the malpractice is the same institution who gets to investigate. It is the same institution who gets to decide whether or not malpractice occurred. So it's quite literally a mess. Fast forward to now.
Speaker 1:Well, just a closed loop system with zero outside entity. That's non-biased, that doesn't have a stake in the fight. But my thing here is what, if they had said that your claim is valid, what would they have had to have done? Like?
Speaker 2:they would have had to pay my claim and they would have had to hold the doctors accountable. The only way a doctor is held accountable in these cases is if a claim is paid out. The same doctor who did this to me is still performing medicine at one my farming medical center, and has since been promoted, and I'm not the only one who has a claim against her. Oh my God, this is so crazy. This is crazy.
Speaker 1:It is crazy and I think that Congress had great intentions in passing this regulation, this law, whatever, well, I think they probably felt that because they couldn't get Ferris passed, they thought, well, this might be the next best thing. But as we see, it doesn't help when the same. It's just like the administrative investigation process. It does you no good to have the same organization who's committed the wrongdoing to be investigating itself to discover whether or not it's done any wrongdoing. I mean, there are those crazy one in a million cases, like Mandy got, where her complaint was substantiated, but those are far and few between, and I would say that the only way they do that is when they know they can make a fall guy that they can risk making, which is in her case, was somebody who was retired, unfortunately. That's about the only way, I think, you're going to get any accountability from this. So okay, so now we're back and forth with the experts. The DHA appeals board goes through, and is that?
Speaker 2:it? Yeah, so my case now currently sits at the DHA appeals board. I don't have a final answer from them. We are at the final stage. Like there is nothing after this.
Speaker 2:We did receive like their 28 page expert report from their air force OBGYN who said just makes no sense, blames it on things that aren't even possible.
Speaker 2:It just completely contradicts not only what my experts say but also what my medical records say, and so at this point it's a battle of the experts and there's no third party that's non-biased investigating this. So I still have hope. That's the only thing that I can hold on to is hope that the DHA appeals board will truly just look at this case. The only thing that I've ever wanted out of my case is truth. I wanted the truth and then I wanted accountability, and they claim that this is supposed to be a non adversarial process. This is a truth seeking process, but they're not truth seeking when all they're doing is hiring experts who are telling lie after lie and failing to just at bare minimum read my record and look at my imaging. So my case currently just stands at the DHA appeals board and all I can do is hope for the best and you also want action to be taken against the doctors who who performed these.
Speaker 1:I mean, and this is what medical malpractice insurance is made for. I mean, doctors aren't perfect. They make mistakes and this is why there is a process in the civilian sector for people to make claims against physicians. And I am curious. This is just, and you might not know the answer to this but what if she had owned it? What if, at the outset, she had said I made a mistake, I can't believe this happened, I am so sorry and just owned it? What would have happened? She would have lost her job, probably.
Speaker 2:But you know, I don't know the answer to that here's the thing is that what we always say is it wasn't that they cut my artery, that was the malpractice. It was the failure to document, the failure to disclose and the failure to give me any opportunity to have it repaired. When I show up at a civilian hospital hemorrhaging, they have no idea what had happened to me. It could have been fixed and I could have moved on with my life and probably so you didn't need to have the hemp.
Speaker 1:The the C section you didn't direct me has directed me yeah, if they had just fixed it.
Speaker 2:but they didn't fix it. They failed to properly repair it. They put the wrong sutures on it. They didn't fix it. They failed to properly repair it. They put the wrong sutures on it. They didn't properly repair it. They didn't have the doctor you know the vascular surgeon come in and repair it. They didn't diagnose it, didn't disclose it. They didn't send me to another hospital to have it repaired when they knew that they had failed to repair it.
Speaker 2:So there's so many things that had happened that I don't know what the outcome would have been If they, initially, would have come to me and said this is what happened, we need to go treat you for this. None of this would be happening. I would have moved on with my life a long time ago, but they didn't. They chose to cover it up, and this is where we are, and this is where we are and I also. One of the other things I wanted to touch on is when I was in the warrior transition battalion, now known as the SRE, the soldier recovery unit they had said you know, we want you to file a TSGLI claim. You know which is what I paid into? It's the traumatic life insurance, and so I had filed the claim, and I don't know.
Speaker 1:What is traumatic life insurance? I don't know that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's you know, like when it's like SGLI. You know when I know SGLI, yeah, so it's like a like a section of that and it's traumatic life insurance and it's a payout that you would get if you, if you have something traumatic happen to you. It it's on like the VA website. So if you lose your arm you get up to like a $50,000. It's something you pay for. It's almost like I don't know life insurance, but it's just a traumatic section of that.
Speaker 2:And so I obviously paid into that and so I filled it out and I went to submit it. I even had an OBGYN at WOMAC who's Lieutenant Colonel was Lieutenant Colonel. She filled out everything, read my records, literally put in black and white exactly what happened damaged uterine artery and C-section and when I went to submit it they said you know, this is medical malpractice. You can't, you can't file this. You know TSHLA doesn't cover MedMal. Fast forward, I was told last year, after meeting, you know, at the Pentagon with the higher officials, to still submit it. And I did and I received a letter back from the TSGLI office saying you know, we're denying you because your uterine artery was lacerated during your cesarean section, resulting in hysterectomy.
Speaker 1:So I have a documented now. You have it documented from another expert, from an outside non-biased expert, or let's just say biased because they don't want to pay you. Yeah, and they're saying that this is what the problem is.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, so it's just. It's just a mess from top to bottom. There's nothing normal about this process. It is, it's good intentions, but ultimately it's just it's not. It doesn't work.
Speaker 1:It's not working, obviously, and what I think is even more just incredulous is that the doctor who supervised your surgery is still practicing to this day right and is still at the Army Center.
Speaker 2:The doctor who supervised my surgery she's now out of the military and she's now at a UNC in Raleigh, north Carolina. And the doctor who actually damaged my artery is the one who has since been promoted and is still performing medicine at Wilmette Army Medical Center.
Speaker 1:So what you did and what I really admire about you is you not only fought your story, you said okay, I can't be the only person that this has happened to, so tell me a little bit about that journey and what you decided to do with this story and take this to the next level.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so obviously last year was a big year in many different ways. I obviously fought so hard for my case and my claim through the, you know, 2020 NDA section 731, the military medical malpractice claims process, but I think, always in the back of my head, I know that that process is not fair. It is not a fair chance or opportunity at all for service members to get proper recourse, and so me, along with Kamni and Jill, and some of the other women who have Mandy, who have helped co-found Coalition of Heroes, which is our nonprofit, we have fiercely advocated for a bill called the Hero Act. Cases to be taken out of this process, completely taken out of the DOD, the DOD and it would allow us to go to a district court and have our cases heard in court, which would obviously be much more fair process. We would be open to like discovery and whatnot, and it would just be a more fair process.
Speaker 2:And ultimately, last year, despite like our fair advocating and meeting with over a hundred congressional offices and senators and we received I want to say it was over 30 co-sponsors on the bill, it did not make it into the NDA last year, but we did just find out that it is now being reintroduced again this year, and so as soon as it gets reintroduced, we'll just pick up where we left off and continue advocating for that opportunity for the HERO Act to be passed, which at this point is the only fair process that can be put in place for service members unless they overturn Ferris or at least amend the Ferris doctrine, which I know you mentioned, ryan Carter, and we followed his case so closely.
Speaker 1:Actually, our nonprofit was able to file an amicus brief on behalf of that's a friend of the court brief, where people who support the initial filing can tag onto it and say, hey, this affects me too, this affects our organization as well. And so you guys did that. And please tell me again, because I want to make sure that I get this what exactly is your bill doing that the Ferris doesn't Just say it again.
Speaker 2:I mean the Ferris completely bars, service and merge from suing the federal court entirely. And what this would allow us to do is, if you are a victim of medical malpractice it is specific to medical malpractice it would allow you the doors to a district court for your cases to be heard. It's before a judge and it's not a perfect fix. It's truly not. The only thing that would be a perfect fix would be either overturning Ferris or, you know, amending it. My thing is is we don't necessarily disagree with Ferris all in all, Like I don't believe that if I'm a service member and I go to Afghanistan and, you know, get my leg blown off, I unfortunately like it's tragic, but like that is what you raise your right hand to do and whatnot, but when you go to a hospital, or you're sexually assaulted, or you didn't ask for that.
Speaker 2:you didn't raise your hand and ask for you. Know you, that's not what you signed an oath to do or be treated like or you know be disposed of, and so I don't think that we need to necessarily overturn Ferris.
Speaker 1:I wouldn't be opposed to that, but I definitely think that we need to have them ended. I think that combat injuries should be its own special category. Injuries sustained while performing combat operations Right. But there are ways that you could siphon that off into its own special category and then still give rights to everybody else. The fact that Ferris has been overreached to extend to all these other cases is just clearly a way for the government to not give service members due process or their rights and we see in so many other examples where service members are not given due process.
Speaker 1:And here we are trying so hard to recruit people, trying so hard to retain people, because I truly don't believe the messaging about how great recruitment and retention is at the moment. I think that's like Trump's you know, oh, there were so many people that were at this thing or that or that, and I get why he's doing it. Please don't get me wrong. I get the message that it sends and why you want to say that, but I don't believe it's true.
Speaker 2:Nobody trusts the military. Nobody trusts the military. They don't trust the media.
Speaker 1:And this is why when we have cases like this, or we have cases with false accusations, where people languish in jail for 20, 30 years, or we have people who have had a legitimate sexual assault upon them and the person faces no repercussions because it does go both ways this is why we don't trust the military can't get justice for the people who harmed her, or the fact that the state of Hawaii still isn't their their water purifiers. I believe they haven't fixed the issues, the underlying issues that cause those things to be to happen in the first place.
Speaker 2:But they're so focused on punishing Mandy for being outspoken about it and advocating for all the families, but they refuse to just make it right and it's the. It's the same thing across the board. It is. It truly is.
Speaker 2:The only thing I can say is I understand protecting your service members. I get that, but I was also a service member, I also wore the uniform and you would rather dispose of me and treat me the way that you treated me over the last six years and protect someone who not only obviously can't perform well in her job but then obviously covers it up. And you know, I've talked about this briefly and it is like on my website on my testimony but the lieutenant colonel who was overseeing this was also found live liable and guilty of revenge porn in the state of North Carolina at the same time that she was overseeing my surgery. So there's just no accountability whatsoever in the military and nobody trusts it. And it's sad and it's disgusting and I love the military.
Speaker 2:I still love the military. Obviously, like with what's happened, it's a double edged sword for me, but I still respect anyone who wears the uniform. I will still stand for the flag. I am so proud of my service and I'm so proud of being a part of that. We love the people. We just still stand for the flag. I am so proud of my service and I'm so proud of being a part of that we love the people.
Speaker 1:We just don't love the process and we don't love the fact that we have a Congress that refuses to hold the military accountable. They do and they're so scared, they're so scared, they're terrified of the military and they're terrified of doing anything that would harm the I guess, the reputation of the military. But you make the military better by calling out what needs to be fixed.
Speaker 1:And this is not the way to treat our service members and we all know it. It's like this. I just don't get it. It baffles me sometimes to see some of the mainstream media and some of the larger podcasters who are spending more time focused on Tim Kennedy's stolen valor, which I agree that's a legitimate issue. But how many videos do we need to make about Tim Kennedy's stolen valor versus some issue like this, versus false accusations, versus our unjust administrative system, versus the fact that the military justice system needs to be fixed, versus the fact that the military justice system needs to be fixed, versus the fact that we have a mental health crisis? And oh, by the way, I'm having an upcoming show about military mental health and from an expert who has lived it in every branch of service. So it just blows my mind that we're just not focused on it. And I believe that what my mission will be, lauren, is to encourage kindly every military podcaster who is small like myself to start taking on these issues and not be afraid to talk about these issues. And if they want to talk about these issues in another way, I will tell you that they are the most popular shows that I do. So if that's the reason why you want to do these shows, because you know it's going to increase your reach. Well, guess what? Do those shows just because of that? I don't care, but do these shows because they're important and these are stories that need to be told. So thank you, lauren. You have no idea how grateful I am that you shared your story on my podcast.
Speaker 1:And Madeline Stewart. She also has a comment for you and definitely echoes what I think. Lauren, you should be so proud of yourself. Thank you for sharing your story. So proud to call you my friend. Your strength is insane. And then Beth spoke. Sopko Palladini says our amazing daughter, you are amazingly strong and we are behind you all the way. Stand up with your fight.
Speaker 2:So thank you. I didn't cry the whole time and I'll cry from those messages. I'm going to cry from those messages. No, I mean, I couldn't have gone through this without my family and my friends, and my attorney has just been, like my biggest supporter over the last year and truly, like I, hope for a positive outcome.
Speaker 1:Me too, and I'm optimistic. I'm optimistic, like I said, the reception outcome. But Me too, and I'm optimistic. I'm optimistic, like I said, the reception and the feedback that I get from doing shows like this are the reasons why I keep doing them. Also, because this was the reason why I started my show was to have these hard conversations, and what I hope will happen going forward is that we encourage more people who are victims of military medical malpractice to speak up, to contact these military podcasters and say I need to tell my story too. I need people to know that they're not alone, that this has happened to me.
Speaker 1:And, uh, we're just going to keep talking about it. We're going to keep talking about it and talk about it and talk about it. And then, one day, militarycom will talk about it one day, task and purpose, and they do their credit. Sometimes they do, but they need to talk about it more. And and that is what we we need and then we need fox talking about, we need megan kelly talking about, we need candace owen talking about, we need joe rogan, we need sean ryan. We need all these people talking about it and then maybe then something will change.
Speaker 2:So the only thing I want to say is if you have been through something similar or are a victim of military medical practice, do not stop fighting. This process and system is set up to just go and go and go so that it exhausts you, exhausts your attorneys, exhausts you to the point that you just give up and walk away. And the more that we don't do that and the more that we fight, I think, the more that we'll see change.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, Absolutely. Is there anything else that you want to say before we close out the call? I know we went a little over an hour so I thank your audience for our patience. But I know these are just very tough stories to get out. But is there anything else that we want to tell the audience before we get off the call?
Speaker 2:I don't think so. I think, just if you know anyone going through it, just support them as much as you can. It's the ugliest thing I've ever been a part of and it's it's traumatic and it continues to be traumatic over and over and over again. But I think, if you can just support us in any way that you can call your congressmen and women, send letters, send emails, reach out to them. It's called the Hero Act. It's HR 4334. I don't know if the numbers change, but we can obviously release that information on our social medias. But we need reform, we need change, we need justice for service members who are victims of medical malpractice.
Speaker 1:Yes, we do. All right, lauren, I'm going to meet you backstage to say goodbye while I go full screen. But thank you so much for coming on the Stories of Service podcast for sharing your story. We will be tracking this and giving updates periodically as you go through the final appeal with DHA, which I really do. Hope that you get the justice that you deserve, and maybe this podcast will be one small effort in helping you get there. So thank you very much for agreeing to come on the show.
Speaker 1:I'm going to go full screen, all right, guys. Thank you so much for joining us. We did go over a little over an hour, but thank you for staying with us. Definitely going to be going through the rest of the summer with some very interesting shows. As I inch more towards my retirement, I'm having more of those harder conversations and it's been very rewarding, very hard, but I thank you all for staying with me and for supporting the Stories of Service podcast. These are ordinary people just like me and you, but I believe they are doing extraordinary work. So thank you, take care of each other, take care of yourselves and enjoy the rest of your evening. Bye-bye now.