In May, we brought you the story of a Marine veteran who was in Harrisburg Hospital after a crash in his broken wheelchair, and he said he’d been asking the Lebanon VA to fix it for months.
A generous viewer donated a wheelchair for the vet, Nathan Kump, to use. Since then, he received a new custom wheelchair through the VA.
“They pulled all the stops, anything I needed, anything I wanted, they went above and beyond,” says Kump.
The public affairs officer for the Lebanon VA, Douglas Etter, says Kump’s record shows he called multiple times to ask for his wheelchair to be replaced. But the calls slipped though the cracks until Kump contacted FOX43.
Etter says it was a miscommunication between the VA and the contractor that provides their wheelchairs.
“We’re grateful to you to have worked with us to help Nathan get the care that he needed and get his wheelchair,” he says.
The Lebanon VA serves 63,000 veterans in 9 counties, and Etter says this incident is not typical. He points out a third of their staff are veterans themselves.
Kump is grateful for the outpouring of support he received from viewers.
“When people did see the news story, people called in and said what can we do,” says Kump. “And the fact that somebody did, they took time out of their day to get a chair and bring it to the hospital, that was kind of a big deal.”
