On New Year’s Eve, Roy Fred Giddens sat with his brother and watched the Chicago Bears game from his room at the Jesse Brown VA Medical Center.
Giddens had been admitted to the hospital days earlier for chest pains and was told by a doctor the prognosis did not look good. The 75-year-old Vietnam veteran, who had long struggled with post-traumatic stress disorder and mental illness, was having a hard time coping with the news.
Giddens told his brother, Donald, he did not think he could continue living and said he’d told the same thing to hospital staff. Donald Giddens, a licensed therapist, told his brother self-harm was not an option, and they would find someone at the hospital with whom he could speak.
While the words weighed heavily on him, Donald Giddens felt relief that his brother was at least in a hospital where professional staff could look after him.
“By the time I was getting ready to leave, again he said, ‘I’m gonna miss you guys,’” Donald Giddens said. “I’m thinking, I don’t have anything to worry about … because I can’t think of a better place for him to be.”
On the drive home, Donald Giddens learned his brother might have access to a gun. Minutes later he received a call from the VA: His brother had shot himself.
He rushed to Stroger Hospital, where Giddens was pronounced dead 30 minutes later.
The close-knit family, including Roy Giddens’ five children, remain in shock and have serious questions about how Giddens was able to get a weapon into a VA hospital and why staff were not watching him more closely.
“I don’t understand,” Donald Giddens said. “How could you get a gun into the facilities?”
Pressed by the Sun-Times, the hospital declined to answer that or other questions about the death.
“We are unable to speak to the specifics of this case due to the ongoing investigation,” it said in a statement, “We are very saddened at the loss of this Veteran at the Jesse Brown VA Medical Center and send our heartfelt condolences to the Veteran’s family, friends and staff impacted.”
The suicide rate among veterans is generally higher than in the general population, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. However, between 2001 and 2021, veteran men 75 and older had lower suicide rates than nonveteran men in the same age group, according to the VA. The highest suicide rates among veterans in 2021 were those between ages 18 and 34, followed by those between 35 and 54, the VA reported.
There have not been extensive studies about suicides at VA facilities. But one study by the VA found 19 suicides on VA campuses nationwide from October 2017 to November 2018, seven of them in parking lots. The VA reported that it prevented 233 suicide attempts on hospital grounds during the same time.
Starting a year ago, veterans in “acute suicidal crisis” have been able to go to any VA or non-VA health care facility for emergency health care at no cost.
Not satisfied with care
Roy Giddens had been in and out of the VA hospital the past five or six years, his brother said. He had a history of heart problems and recently had a stroke.
Giddens was not happy with the treatment he had received at the VA hospital, according to his brother. He wanted to speak with a lawyer, but his brother worried the stress of taking legal action would have adverse effects on his health. He urged him to wait.
A few days before New Year’s, Giddens thought he was having another heart attack, so his brother took him to the VA hospital. Donald Giddens said he stood with his brother as he checked in, handed over his belongings and was taken upstairs.
“He called me the next day to tell me that he had a conversation with the doctor, and the doctor had given him some really bad news,” Donald Giddens said. “He told me at that point that he really didn’t feel that he was going to make it.
“He had this sense of doom and gloom, and I assured him that, upon discharge, we would get another opinion.”
He checked on his brother almost every day. “Not only was he my brother, he was my close friend, my closest friend,” Donald Giddens said.
On New Year’s Eve, Roy Giddens told his brother he wasn’t feeling well, so Donald Giddens spent the day with him at the hospital.
As Donald Giddens prepared to leave, his brother told him how much he would miss him and the family. Though the message worried him, he felt reassured his brother was in the care of medical professionals.
On the car ride home, he received a text from a friend of his brother’s saying she worried Roy Giddens might have access to a gun.
Donald Giddens said he turned the car around and called his brother, hoping to keep him on the phone until he returned to the hospital.
But minutes later, the hospital called and informed him his brother was dead.
A nurse had been treating another patient in Giddens’ room when she heard a gunshot, according to a police report. She saw Giddens sitting upright in a chair with a single gunshot wound to the chest and a gun in his hand, the report said.
Giddens then placed the weapon on a hospital tray and said he did not want to live anymore, according to the report. Hospital staff and VA officers began life-saving measures until Giddens lost consciousness.
He was taken to Stroger Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 9:09 p.m. on Dec. 31, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
In the days that followed, no one from the hospital reached out to the family, Donald Giddens told the Sun-Times.
The death came as a shock to Roy Giddens’ eldest son, Mark Anthony. “I’m just at a loss for words,” he said. “This whole thing is completely out of character.”
‘He served his country proudly and honorably’
Giddens joined the Marines shortly after graduating from John Marshall High School in 1966. He served in Vietnam, where he was promoted to lance corporal and received several medals and awards, his family said.
He was honorably discharged in 1969 and had children Mark Anthony, Freddrick, Christopher, Samantha and Darlene.
“He served his country proudly and honorably,” his family wrote in his obituary. “Yet, like many of our military men and women, he suffered invisible wounds from a war that intermittently hampered him throughout his life.”
Giddens struggled with post-traumatic stress disorder, and his medical records were “saturated with suicidal ideations,” according to Donald Giddens.
He attended DeVry Institute of Technology for two years through the G.I. Bill, majoring in radio and television. He later worked in technology and retail but found it hard to maintain a job, his brother said.
Eventually, Giddens purchased a cab medallion and worked as a taxi driver until he was 65.
“He was a great guy, a hardworking guy,” his son said. “This guy went to work, paid his bills and took care of his kids.”
Giddens loved social gatherings, and he was often seen sporting tailor-made suits.
About 10 years ago, Giddens led a group of fellow SRO tenants in court after they were forced from their homes at the Rosemoor Hotel. A judge ordered the building owner, luxury auto dealer Joe Perillo, to pay each of the 15 tenants $3,000 to help them vacate the building.
“You know what. I’ll be able to sleep at night. I feel like I can walk away with my manhood,” Giddens told Sun-Times columnist Mark Brown in 2014.
In the days after Giddens’ death, hospital staff left a message with his sister requesting a meeting — but Donald and Mark Anthony said they have received no other contact.
“No one reached out to us, ‘I’m sorry for your loss’ … nothing,” Mark Anthony said. “… I’ve been calling them for two weeks, they don’t even answer the phone.”
