A Marine veteran has received an apology from the Veterans Administration after he was forgotten by staff at an Orange City, Fla., clinic and locked inside.
Jeffrey Duck told a local CBS affiliate that he arrived at the Orange City VA Community Based Outpatient Clinic in Deltona at 1 p.m. Monday, waited for three hours to be seen in a consultation room, and then realized that he had been forgotten when an alarm system went off.
“I was apparently left there and forgotten,” he said.
Fearing what authorities would think of his situation, he then called 911 himself.
“I apparently got left in a VA facility — a medical facility — and the alarm has been going off,” he told the operator, the affiliate reported.
The VA issue a statement of apology Tuesday, vowing that officials “are looking at our closing procedures and will make changes to ensure that this does not happen again.”
Mr. Duck told the station he was nevertheless disappointed in the VA, despite the apology.
“There’s a lot of people with bigger problems than me,” he said.
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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