A registered nurse who took care of Terri Schiavo last weekend at the Woodside Hospice in Pinellas Park, Fla., says she was threatened with dismissal if she told the press what she saw.
"[My agency] said that if I went to the media at all that I would be fired," Nora Lynn Wagner told ABC Radio host Sean Hannity. Wagner's response? "I said, 'Well, then - consider me fired.'"
The agency, which Wagner did not identify, was nervous about the case, she said, since it had an ongoing contract with Woodside.
Wagner said that when she arrived to work the Sunday night shift, other nurses had begun to circulate a petition saying that they were appalled at the federal government's intervention in the Schiavo case.
"Most everyone who spoke up thought that pulling the tube" was the right thing to do, because "Terri wouldn't want to live like that," Wagner said.
"I had the opposite opinion. I said, 'No, I'd rather not sign it,'" she recalled.
The RN described her disagreement with co-workers as "a healthy debate" - but at least some of the participants were spooked by her comments.
"Apparently some people got upset and Monday afternoon at 3:30 I got a call from my agency saying that I was no longer to go back to Woodside."
In comments to Hannity, Wagner confirmed that no attempts were being made to rehabilitate Terri, noting, "I believe that was stopped a long time ago."
The RN backed the accounts of other Schiavo nurses over the years, saying that Terri "seemed to have responded to me."
Wagner said she decided to come forward despite the threats to her livelihood, explaining: "This was important to me. I was not going to be threatened. This is still America - even in Florida."
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