A federal whistleblower lawsuit accuses Heritage Valley emergency department nurse Nolan Chismire of stealing narcotics, falsifying records and causing at least two patient deaths. The complaint says the allegations involve a 70-year-old woman and a 47-year-old man, and it says another patient faced life-threatening conditions.
Jennifer Duckett and Samantha Gallo
The lawsuit was filed by Samantha Gallo, who continues to work at Heritage Valley Health System, and Jennifer Duckett, who says she was terminated last year after reporting the misconduct. Duckett and Gallo brought the case under the False Claims Act, and the complaint names Heritage Valley Health System CEO Norm Mitry and Chief Nursing Officer Linda Homyk as defendants.
The complaint says Chismire obtained his nursing license in 2009 and began working at Heritage Valley in 2017. It also says he had been fired from two previous positions and that his license was suspended for three years because of stealing drugs. Those details sit at the center of the complaint’s claim that the hospital had warning signs long before the lawsuit surfaced.
Heritage Valley Health System in Sewickley
The lawsuit says Heritage Valley Health System executives, emergency department physicians and emergency department nursing supervisors had actual knowledge of Chismire’s conduct for at least eight years. It alleges hospital leadership took no action and covered it up, even after staff nurses raised concerns and were turned away.
According to the complaint, nurses saw Chismire enter the staff bathroom and exit high. They photographed a freshly used orange tourniquet, used injectable needle syringes and empty Valium intravenous vials. The complaint says Homyk chastised the nurses and ordered them to “stand down.”
The lawsuit also alleges Chismire falsified medical records to show controlled substances had been prescribed when they had not been. It describes his conduct as “frequent, pervasive and ongoing,” and says the pattern involved narcotics diverted from patients over at least eight years.
Heritage Valley and False Claims Act
The case was unsealed this month in federal court, putting the allegations into the public record. On Tuesday morning, messages left with hospital leadership and Chismire were not immediately returned.
For patients treated in the emergency department, the complaint raises a narrow but urgent question: whether medication records, staffing oversight and prior complaints were enough to stop the alleged diversion before the deaths and life-threatening injury described in the suit.
