Father Seeks Justice for Daughter's Army Hospital Death

Nov. 22, 2004 — -- Retired Marine Col. William Tyra thought he would have been able to find some closure when an Army report found three officers and a former commander at Walter Reed Army Medical Center at fault for his daughter's death.

But, Tyra says, his fight goes on because the Army has not held anyone truly accountable in his daughter Katie's death. Katie was a healthy sophomore at Hayfield Secondary School in Fairfax, Va., when she went to Walter Reed in April 1998 to have a benign cyst removed from her neck.

"I told her that she was going to the hospital where the president goes, and she had nothing to worry about," said Tyra, Katie's father, on ABC News' "Good Morning America."

However, Katie never made it into surgery. Instead, minutes after kissing her parents goodbye -- after Michael Hamner, an anesthesiologist, gave her the antibiotic clindamycin -- Katie went into cardiac arrest. Hamner administered more than a dozen drugs in an attempt to revive her. But she never regained consciousness and died 12 days later.

Tyra thought his daughter's death was suspicious and pressed for an investigation. He retired from the service so that he could file a civil lawsuit. (Members of the armed services are prohibited from suing the government.) The Army settled a civil case for $1 million.

A report by the Army inspector general's office in October found evidence of a cover-up, and a botched investigation, and hospital officials have admitted to the findings.

Hamner, a captain in his third year of residency at the time of Katie's death, lied for months about how much clindamycin he had given her and how quickly, the investigation found. He pleaded guilty at a 2001 court-martial to falsifying statements and was found guilty of dereliction of duty. However, Hamner was acquitted of negligent homicide in Katie's death.

Hamner faced up to 26 years behind bars, but was not sentenced to prison. He was dismissed dishonorably from the service, but was not barred from practicing medicine. The board of directors of the American Board of Anesthesiology's said it has concluded that "there is not a basis to revoke the subject physician's board certification."