A 77-year-old Army veteran who is blind and brain damaged since getting an eye injection at the Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in Nashville has filed a damage claim against the VA.
The $4 million claim first obtained by The Tennessean says Lloyd Sylvis of Nashville walked in the hospital in March seeking new glasses as an outpatient. He is now in a near vegetative state due to an infection that the VA attributes to contaminated medication. The claim says four other patients were possibly affected.
Sylvis awoke after a March 29 Avastin injection with severe pain and no vision. He became disoriented. The claim says a doctor diagnosed bacterial meningitis.
A VA Tennessee Valley Healthcare System spokesman told the newspaper that physicians disclosed what happened to all four patients.