Daughter-in-law questioned actions of AF nurse - Military News | News From Afghanistan, Iraq And Around The World - Military Times

Daughter-in-law questioned actions of AF nurse

SAN ANTONIO — An Air Force nurse charged with murder said he wanted to make a terminally ill man comfortable as he tinkered with his medication just moments after another nurse went on break, one of the patient’s relatives testified Thursday.

Silvestre Orosco, 83, died a short time later. He was one of three ailing patients on do-not-resuscitate orders that Capt. Michael Fontana is accused of killing at the Air Force’s largest hospital last summer.

“I thought it was odd ... [Fontana] came in and went straight for the bags,” said Margarita Orosco, the man’s daughter-in-law, referring to the hanging bags of intravenous drugs.

Orosco was among the last of 12 witnesses at Lackland Air Force Base during a two-day Article 32 hearing, which is similar to a civilian grand jury. An Air Force colonel who presided over the hearing will now recommend whether to send the case to court-martial.

Air Force officials say there is no timetable for a decision. If the case moves forward and Fontana is convicted, he could face life in prison.

Staff at Wilford Hall Medical Center recalled Fontana, 35, as a caring and knowledgeable nurse who won the favor of patients’ families. But they said they also heard him discuss his “aggressive” reputation in treating end-of-life patients, who are taken off machines and have just hours or days to live.

Military prosecutors offered no motive and Fontana’s attorneys did not call witnesses. Fontana has not commented since being charged in March.

His military defense counsel asked some who testified whether “comfort care” — treatment that serves only to minimize pain in life’s final moments — was subjective when it came to medication. The hospital had no dosage rate limits to follow when Fontana worked in the intensive care unit.

“End of life care is not an exact science?” asked Maj. Michael Coco, one of Fontana’s attorneys.

“Yeah, I would say that,” said Orosco, a longtime hospice nurse’s aid.

Orosco earlier testified that Fontana didn’t say much when she asked what he was doing in the room.

“What bothered me was that he kept doing stuff with the bags,” she said.

Michael Shiels, the nurse who cared for Silvestre Orosco before going on break, testified that a bag of the painkiller fentanyl taken from the room was not the same one he ordered. Shiels said he hadn’t been gone very long before he returned and Orosco died.

Military prosecutors also asked Shiels about whether he would give 50 milligrams of morphine, an unusually large amount given to another of Fontana’s alleged victims. Each patient Fontana is accused of killing had what doctors described as alarmingly high doses of painkillers.

“By the time I would get 50 milligrams in, I don’t think the patient would even be breathing,” Shiels said.

Fontana, who also faces one count of conduct unbecoming an officer for altering medical records, has been in the Air Force since 2006 and served a 2007 tour at the military hospital in Balad, Iraq.

Officials have said Fontana is the first Air Force medical personnel member in at least 10 years to be accused of deliberately killing a patient.

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• Witnesses: AF nurse aggressively treated dying patients