Remember last year when it was revealed a VA clinic in Ohio was using less than sterile conditions. There was an uproar!
Well, the dental lab technician who blew the whistle on died Saturday in a one car accident.
By Thomas Gnau, Staff Writer Updated 10:37 AM Sunday, October 16, 2011
BEAVERCREEK — A dental lab technician who helped call attention to poor infection-control practices at the Dayton VA Medical Center last year was killed in a one-car accident in Beavercreek Saturday morning.
Wallace “Ray” Perdue of Fairborn was killed after the car he was driving left the road and struck a tree in the 2200 block of Kemp Road, just west of Beaver Valley Road, at 11:54 a.m. Saturday, according to Beavercreek police. He was 45. Police said he died at the scene.
His wife, Sherry Perdue, was also in the car. She was examined at Miami Valley Hospital after the crash, then discharged on Saturday, a hospital spokesperson said.
The Perdues, along with a third whistle-blower, told VA inspectors in the summer of 2010 about dentist Dr. Dwight Pemberton’s failure to sterilize instruments and change latex gloves between seeing patients.
In the aftermath of the Perdues’ allegations coming to light, the VA closed its Dayton dental clinic for three weeks and offered testing for hepatitis B, hepatitis C and HIV to 535 former patients of Pemberton’s.
