The Pennsylvania attorney general charged a nurse in connection with the death of the father of former national security adviser H. R. McMaster Jr.
May 10 (UPI) — The Pennsylvania attorney general on Thursday charged a nurse with involuntary manslaughter in connection with the death of the father of former national security adviser H. R. McMaster Jr.
Christann Gainey also was charged with neglect of a care-dependent person and tampering with records for allegedly providing inadequate care that resulted in the death of 84-year-old Herbert R. McMaster Sr.
Gainey faces 10 to 20 years in prison for the neglect charge and two-and-a-half to five years in prison for the involuntary manslaughter and tampering charges.
“We will hold her accountable for failing to do her job and lying about it,” said Attorney General Josh Shapiro.
Gainey was accused of falsifying records to make it appear that she had completed required neurological checks on McMaster, including one filed 20 minutes after he was found dead in his wheelchair on April 13.
“I falsified that one because I didn’t want the next nurse to have to do them,” Gainey said.
McMaster died about 8 hours after an unwitnessed fall that took place in his room at Cathedral Village senior living facility in Philadelphia on April 12, Shapiro said.
Staff found him bleeding from a cut in his head and Gainey ordered he be placed in a wheelchair and taken to the lobby, where he was found dead the next morning.
Shapiro said Gainey, who was contracted by McMaster’s family through General Healthcare Resources, contributed to his death by failing to perform the required eight neurological checks.
“Gainey could have saved Mr. Master’s life had she simply done her job,” he said.
A representative for Cathedral Village said the facility has been working closely with law enforcement and “will continue to cooperate with the attorney general’s prosecution of the non-employee nurse arrested today.”
McMaster’s daughter, Letitia McMaster, issued a statement calling the attorney general’s decision “an important step forward” in the case.
“The best way to honor his memory is for all of us to do all we can to prevent others from suffering at the hands of those who lack compassion and abandon even the most basic standards of human decency,” she said.
