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Hospital Pays Out $6 Million to Settle Medical Malpractice Against Neil Armstrong
Two years after the death of former astronaut Neil Armstrong, the first human being ever to walk on the moon, Mercy Health agreed to pay $6 million to settle his surviving family members’ allegations that medical malpractice at Fairfield Hospital had killed him.
At the time of Armstrong’s death on Aug. 25, 2012, his family disclosed to the public only that he had recently undergone cardiac bypass surgery and that “complications resulting from cardiovascular procedures” had taken his life. This was true, according to the Times. It wasn’t the whole story.
Armstrong had received the surgery Aug. 7 at Fairfield Hospital. “As a standard part of the procedure, doctors implanted temporary wires to help pace his heartbeat as he recovered,” the Times wrote Monday. “But when a nurse removed those wires, Mr. Armstrong began to bleed internally and his blood pressure dropped.”