My husband, Richard Crum, was a loving husband, father and grandfather. He was a science
teacher and principal for many years, devoting his career to teaching and mentoring special
needs students. He was a kind, generous, and compassionate man, with a sharp mind and a
great sense of humor. To know Ric was to love him.

Ric died on November 5, 2021, due to the hospital’s “covid protocol”, medical malpractice and
medical negligence.

Ric went to the ER on October 21, 2021 with chest pains and shortness of breath. Ric had
contracted covid from a fully vaccinated friend, 19 days earlier, on October 2, but had been
managing his symptoms at home. But, the chest pains and shortness of breath came on
suddenly after he had started feeling better, so it was decided he should get things checked out
at the ER, in case he had developed blood clots.

Upon arrival in the ER, Ric was yelled at, mocked and berated by the ER doctor who called him
an “idiot” for not being vaccinated. The ER doctor threatened to “throw” Ric on a ventilator
despite the fact that Ric tested negative not once, but TWICE in the ER for covid.

After two negative covid tests, chest x-rays and a CT scan of his lungs, It was determined that
actually Ric was NOT a covid patient, but had developed blood clots in his lungs and had a
non-covid, respiratory infection. The doctor even joked with me saying, “There are other
respiratory infections out there people used to routinely get besides covid, but we tend to forget
about those these days.” Ric and I were told repeatedly by the doctors that Ric DID NOT have
covid pneumonia.

Ric and I were told the pulmonologist had been called in to consult on Ric’s case and he
reviewed Ric’s lung x-ray and CT scan he determined Ric’s lungs “did not look like covid lungs”
and since he tested negative twice for covid, he was not a covid patient and it was the blood
clots that were causing the shortness of breath. The care plan was to treat him for a couple of
days with a heparin drip (blood thinner) and then discharge him home on day 3 with blood
thinner shots.

Then, right before he was set to be discharged, we were told the hospital did a 3rd covid test
and this one was positive and that’s when everything changed. The same doctor who called me
the day before to tell me he was not a covid patient and his lungs did not look like a covid lungs
and she was planning to discharge him home, told me that Ric was now a covid patient and
could not come home and was likely going to die. You can imagine the shock from this sudden
about face! When I asked about what had changed since the pulmonologist had said the day
before about Ric’s lungs not looking like covid lungs the doctor had no answer. I then asked if
his condition had changed since the day before, and the doctor admitted his condition hadn’t
actually changed, but now they had a positive covid test and that “changed everything” despite
the fact that his actual condition had not changed. The 3rd covid test was the main diagnostic
tool they were now using to determine his care plan. This is when the hospital’s deadly “covid
protocol” started for Ric.

It was discovered later when an autopsy was performed that Ric had a heart condition that was
left completely untreated during his 15 day hospital stay, The main artery to his heart (LAD) was
90% occluded (blocked with plaque) and another artery to the heart was 100% occluded. This
meant Ric was only getting 10% blood flow through the main artery to his heart. This major
heart condition was the main contributor to his death and was completely ignored and no stent
procedure was ever discussed or performed. In fact, I was told repeatedly by the doctors and
nurses that Ric’s heart looked “perfect”.

At some point, Ric developed a pneumonia infection that was also left untreated and allowed to
worsen. I BEGGED for antibiotics to treat his worsening pneumonia, but was told repeatedly it
was a viral, “covid pneumonia” and the “covid protocol” did not allow for antibiotics. When I
asked for cultures to be done to determine if it could be another type of pneumonia, such as a
bacterial pneumonia that might respond to antibiotics, that request was also denied. It was only
after he died and an autopsy was performed that my suspicions of a secondary bacterial
pneumonia were proven to be true. Simple antibiotics could have treated it, but the hospital’s
“covid protocol” denied Ric life saving antibiotics and sadly, it was allowed to worsen over his 15
day stay and was determined to be a major contributor to his death.

Along with being denied life-saving antibiotics, Ric was denied food and water, and even denied
basic IV fluids. He lost 36 pounds in 14 days in the hospital, and Ric was not an overweight
man.

At one point, the limited treatment therapies he was receiving were completely stopped,
including iv fluids, and he was placed on hospice without his consent or my consent. I was then
bullied by one of the doctors to change Ric’s medical directive from a full code, which would
provide all life-saving measures which was his wish, to a Do Not Resuscitate. When I refused to
change Ric’s directive to DNR, the doctor told me she would refuse to perform life-saving CPR
on Ric if he were to have a heart attack in the hospital, even though it would go against Ric’s
wishes and his directive that was in his chart. I begged her to honor Ric’s wishes as he was only
58 years old and he wanted to live and come back to his family. The doctor again emphatically
said she would not perform potentially life-saving CPR on Ric, even though that was his
directive and wish. The family was shocked and very concerned by this doctor’s indifferent and
uncompassionate attitude toward Ric. This same doctor also discontinued all of Ric’s therapies.
heavily sedated him while he was on the bi-pap mask, discontinued his IV fluids and placed him
on “hospice measures’ ‘ without Ric or my knowledge or consent. Her actions caused Ric to
rapidly and steeply decline and hastened his death.

Ric was isolated from our family and not allowed to have any visitors. He was constantly told by
the doctors that he was going to die. He was also constantly pressured into going on a ventilator
even though it was not medically necessary at the time. The constant scare tactics and bullying
by the doctors and other medical staff along with the isolation, caused him to become very
depressed and despondent, but despite pleas from the family to allow even some limited
visitation to ease his emotional distress, all requests for visitation were denied.

Ric was administered several very powerful sedatives and narcotics without his or my consent..
He was chemically restrained using narcotics and sedatives. Ric was also physically restrained
to the bed using wrist restraints, even while sedated. At one point, the hospital staff restrained
Ric facedown on the bed with a bi-pap mask on, which could’ve caused him to aspirate and die,
and which is against the Dept. of Health’s guidelines for restraining a patient. He was left this
way for so long, the bi-pap mask bore a hole into the bridge of his nose causing a severe
pressure wound.

I tried several times to get Ric transferred to a larger hospital where he could receive a higher
level of care and ECMO. The hospital denied my request for transfer repeatedly. Ric was treated
like a prisoner, not a patient!

Finally, after 15 days of medical abuse and negligence, and when it was evident the hospital
staff was losing him, I was finally allowed in to see him for only 2 hours. He went into cardiac
arrest with me at his side and I witnessed 17 agonizing minutes of CPR and my husband’s
death. I have now been diagnosed with PTSD from this horrific experience.
Later, the toxicology report showed RIc was given a lethal dose of fentanyl. The allowable range
for fentanyl is 1-3 and Ric’s level was 19. This fentanyl overdose was also a contributor to Ric’s
death and is listed in the official autopsy report.

Ric was the victim of medical malpractice and medical negligence. He was not treated with
kindness, dignity and appropriate medical care, which every patient deserves, despite
vaccination status. All the hospital staff saw was another unvaccinated covid patient. He had no
voice in the vast majority of his care, little to no informed consent, and no advocate at the
bedside. This allowed abuses to go unchecked.

It is my goal to hold those accountable for Ric’s unnecessary death and also to ensure this
inhumane treatment of unvaccinated patients stops and this doesn’t happen to another patient.
Since my husband’s murder in the hospital, I, along with two other covid protocol widows, have
formed a group called the C19 Widows/Widowers For Justice. We represent widows and
widowers from across the United States, who’s spouses were all killed by the hospital covid
protocol. Despite being in different states, different hospitals and our spouses being different
ages and having different states of health, all of our stories are the same. This is because the
Federal Government (FDA/CDC/NIH) devised a death protocol as a “recommended guideline”
to every hospital in the United States. Doctors were simultaneously pressured to use this deadly
protocol so the hospitals they were working at didn’t lose their medicare/medicaid funding as
well as financially incentivized to run the death protocol so the hospital could receive kickbacks
from the Federal Government through the CARES Act and the American Rescue Plan.

Hospitals received kickbacks for every covid test given in the ER, every covid patient admitted
to the hospital, administering deadly Remdesivir, and placing covid patients on a ventilator. They
even received a 20% bonus if the covid patient died in the hospital and they were able to add
covid as the cause of death on the death certificate. So, there was financial motivation to turn as
many sick patients into covid patients as possible and then put them through the death protocol.
To say the Federal Government interfered between the patient and the doctor is an
understatement. Add to this, the President blaming the unvaccinated for pandemic, and no
advocate by the bedside and our spouses literally had a target on their backs the moment they
walked through those hospital doors.