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Heather Pressdee, right, a nurse, is accused in a lawsuit of giving a lethal dose of insulin to Nicholas Cymbol, left. (Pressdee’s photo from Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General; Cymbol’s photo from his obituary)
A Pennsylvania nurse, already facing charges that she administered excessive doses of insulin to dozens of patients, including 17 who died, is accused of giving a 43-year-old “brittle diabetic” patient a lethal dose after she routinely insulted, berated, bullied, and abused him, according to a wrongful-death lawsuit filed by the man’s family this week.
Heather Pressdee is accused of injecting Nicholas Cymbol with an excessive and lethal dose of insulin last May at Sunnyview Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Butler, Pennsylvania, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit documents the events leading up to Cymbol’s death after the suspicious death of another patient on April 17 when, the lawsuit said, “Pressdee set her sights on Nick Cymbol,” a “brittle diabetic” who often experienced large swings in his blood glucose levels and required routine insulin administration to maintain his blood sugar.
“Though Mr. Cymbol was well-liked by the staff at Sunnyview Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, Pressdee routinely insulted, berated, bullied, and abused Mr. Cymbol, just as she had done to other residents,” court documents said. “Staff at Sunnyview Nursing and Rehabilitation Center were aware that Pressdee disliked Mr. Cymbol and that she held the belief that people with a quality of life like Mr. Cymbol did not deserve to live.”
Once Pressdee yelled at Cymbol, in earshot of other Sunnyview staff members, to “get away from [Pressdee’s] f—— desk” when he approached the nurse’s station, court documents said.
She also routinely called him derogatory names such as “retarded” about his anoxic brain injury in earshot of Sunnyview staff members, court documents alleged.
She’s also accused of preventing other nurses at Sunnyview from feeding or providing water to Cymbol several times. The lawsuit said that days before Cymbol died, Pressdee allegedly said he “was going to be the next one to die and that even though staff complained to administrators about it, nothing was done. After nursing staff confronted Sunnyview administration with their concerns about the Pressdee’s “erratic and troubling behavior,” Sunnyview allowed her to continue as unit manager.
“It is absolutely beyond the pale that no one did anything after Pressdee made this promise regarding Mr. Cymbol,” court documents said.
Rob Peirce, the managing partner of Robert Peirce & Associates, said in a statement he’s hoping to get answers as to how she was permitted to continue working in these facilities despite her “erratic, disturbing, and abusive behavior.”
“The more our office has investigated, the more questions we have as to why these facilities allowed these tragedies to occur,” he said.
Sunnyview did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Law&Crime.
As Law&Crime has reported, Pressdee is accused of intentionally administering excessive doses of insulin to 22 patients between 2020 and her arrest last May, according to the state attorney general’s office.
In a news release, Pennsylvania Attorney General Michelle Henry accused her of poisoning 19 patients. In total, 17 of those 19 patients died while in Pressdee’s care, authorities said. Some of the patients — spanning five different care facilities — required insulin to treat diabetes, while some of them did not have diabetes.
She faces one count each of murder of the first and third degree, three counts of criminal homicide, two counts of criminal attempt — murder in the first degree, and charges of aggravated assault, neglect of a care-dependent person, and recklessly endangering another person, court records show. Pressdee remains in custody at Butler County Prison without bail. She has another court hearing set for May 2, according to the court docket.
Pressdee allegedly admitted to some of the incidents but said “she felt bad for their quality of life and she had hoped that they would just slip into a coma and pass away,” according to the initial criminal complaint filed in the case.
Phil DiLucente, one of her attorneys, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Law&Crime.
But in an interview with CBS Pittsburgh affiliate WPXI in November, DiLucente said his client has expressed remorse.
“She has remorse, yes. I know that sounds trite, but as crazy as the whole thing is, she does express remorse, and I think her expression of remorse is sincere,” DePasquale said, the station reported.
