After back surgery, Johnson was left in her feces, and it caused a lethal infection in her spine, her family’s lawyer said during a news conference.
DALLAS (AP) — The family of former U.S. Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson said Thursday that the trailblazing Texas congresswoman, who died over the weekend at age 89, passed away after getting an infection and accused a Dallas rehabilitation facility of neglect.
Johnson, who was the first registered nurse elected to Congress,
The news release said that Eddie Bernice Johnson’s orthopedic surgeon noted in his record that Johnson had some complications after the operation after being found in bed sitting in her own feces and three days later she began having “copious purulent drainage from the low lumbar incision.”
The surgeon performed a surgical repair on the infected wound, and she was moved to a skilled nursing facility on Oct. 18 and went home on hospice care mid-December, the news release said.
The news release said that laboratory wound culture reports showed organisms directly related to feces.
Johnson served in the House for three decades, leaving office last January after repeatedly delaying her retirement. Johnson, who was the first Black chief psychiatric nurse at Dallas’ Veterans Affairs hospital, became the first Black woman to chair the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, and she also led the Congressional Black Caucus.
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