'The state failed him,' says aunt of Florida State Hospital patient who died of COVID-19

The only money Fabian Pettiford had was from his mother’s life insurance. It will go toward his own burial.

Pettiford was a patient in the forensic unit at Florida State Hospital, a mental-health facility in Chattahoochee. A total of four FSH patients have died, according to the state.

His aunt and uncle say they weren’t informed he had COVID-19 until he was unresponsive and on a ventilator in Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare’s ICU. He’d been at TMH for almost a week, his family says.

Four days after that phone call, Fabian died.

"If he's in a closed-up facility, how did you let him catch this? Somebody didn’t do their job," says his uncle Walter Pettiford, 54. "Somebody had to bring it in."

Fabian spent much of his life in and out of jail, prison and mental health facilities. In June, a circuit judge extended Fabian’s stay at the facility after he ruled Fabian still mentally incompetent to stand trial for a charge of battery on a law enforcement officer, court records show.

The last time Walter spoke to his nephew was a couple weeks before his death.

"Uncle Bo, you gonna get me a watch?" Fabian, 34, asked his uncle. Walter did just that.

"I've still got that rubber watch that I bought him," Walter told the Democrat by phone, stifling a sob. "I never got a chance to give it to him."

Fabian’s mother died in a Georgia prison last July, Walter said. Fabian had no direct family left besides a sister.

“She done lost her mama and her brother in a year,” Walter said.

Now, Walter is trying to collect his nephew’s life insurance money, held at FSH, toward a burial. His nephew’s body waits inside the morgue at the funeral home.

"The state told us they won’t help us out with the funeral arrangements. And I would like to know why — if he was a ward of the state,” said his aunt, Walter’s wife Lindsey Pettiford. "I feel like the state failed him."

The state Department of Children and Families, which runs the hospital, has been markedly tight-lipped on the presence of COVID-19 at the facility. Last week, Secretary Chad Poppell released a statement four days after Pettiford died, and after three more were dead.

Poppell did not include a count of FSH cases in his statement, but ordered mandatory testing of all staff and residents. Multiple requests to the media relations department for an updated count have not been returned as of Tuesday. The last update shown online was two weeks ago.

While the District 2 Medical Examiner's Office COVID-19 report says Pettiford was admitted to TMH July 18, and died Monday, July 27, his family says he was admitted July 16, and he died Sunday, July 26. Court records also show a July 26 date of death.

"A rapid test in the ER returned positive results. He had been tested at FSH with unknown test results," the coroner's memo reads.

“It’s hurt me so bad how I lost him… I know people do wrong and right, but we're human. If you cage them up, you should take care of them,” Walter said. “Somebody needs to be held accountable.

Reach Nada Hassanein at nhassanein@tallahassee.com or on Twitter @nhassanein_.

This story originally published to tallahassee.com, and was shared to other Florida newspapers in the USA TODAY Network - Florida.