Team Luke

My brother, Luke Hammond, is 23 years old. He was born with a condition called congenital adrenal hyperplasia, which has been managed through medication and continual monitoring of his levels throughout his whole life.
He got sick with a virus, along with me and my sister, but he was sicker than he knew. He was trying to battle it with increasing his medication, Gatorade, etc. There was no way for him to know at that time, nor us, that he also had a strep infection in his blood.
Before My mom could get there to get him to get him to the hospital to have IV fluids, he had a sudden Cardiac Arrest. EMS had been called and they arrived within minutes. By the time she got there just a couple of minutes later, Luke was flat on his back with them working furiously giving chest compressions to bring him back to life.
You cannot imagine the disbelief, the shock, and the abject heartbreak as we could not believe what we were seeing. They got a pulse and rushed him to New Hanover Regional Medical Center. He lost his pulse two more times but God miraculously spared him each and every time.
He was in ICU for eight days and given a very grim prognosis.
We refused to believe their report and negative proclamation
They said he had suffered brain damage due to an anoxic brain injury.
We said "we choose life and we continue every intervention and care".After 4 days they told us it was out of our hands and that we needed to say our goodbyes because he had hours to live.
But God!
And again they were wrong.
Luke did not die, but continued to live and progress!
He came off the ventilator, had a tracheostomy, and fast tracked through aerosol trach collar trials and the trach was removed.
He was decannulated and breathed 100% on his own for weeks until another major medical mistake happened to him here at this hospital.
After 8 days in the ICU, he spent 16 days on the 7th floor in PCU. They then transferred him to the 10th floor where serious medical mistakes were made and he suffered.
They called a sepsis code on him and had to call a rapid response up there with us begging for him to be transferred back to PCU.
More details, but long story short, they finally transferred him back to PCU where other major medical mistakes happened and Luke again suffered.
They were all documented and acknowledged by staff and floor managers.
Luke was accepted to the Shepherd center, which is in network with Cigna.
The sent a representative here to assess Luke, paperwork was filed and after days of waiting to hear, we received word that The Shepherd Center accepted Luke.
The Shepherd center is the only facility that Luke qualifies for and it is also the premier facility for his type of injury. All the doctors agreed, the Shepherd center agreed and accepted him. There are only 2 facilities that treat this and the other is in Denver, Colorado.
Some doctor at Cigna on a peer to peer review with Luke's doctor, decided without even reading Luke's chart, that Luke didn't need to go to the Shepherd Center and denied it.
All the doctors who have taken care of Luke since January 15th, AND The shepherd center, agreed that it was the very place he needs to go. So some doctor who works for Cigna , decided he knew better than all of them without ever laying eyes on Luke and not really knowing anything pertinent.
Based on a phone call from Luke's doctor, who we can only assume left out some magical word that their doctor wanted to hear, didn't present it sufficiently or whatever excuse you've given, stamped "denied" on Luke and the treatment he needs.
We have worked through every channel tirelessly, doing a family appeal which they also denied, calling everyone at Cigna, only to be told to do this and do that which we have done.
So while they continued to deny our appeals, Luke would have already been at The Shepherd Center.
We were told the bed was available and we would be flown out from New Hanover Regional Medical Center to the Shepherd center in Atlanta Georgia. The day before Luke was to be flown out there was a knock on the door and the social worker told us Cigna had denied Luke's admission.
He laid here in this hospital waiting for them to approve his admission to the Shepherd Center while we worked feverishly going through their channels, doing it their way which went nowhere, with more time wasted and Luke just laying here waiting to get where he needs to be.
And while he did, another medical mistake was made here at New Hanover Regional Medical Center.
And it has been admitted and confirmed that it was a major medical mistake. Luke was administered a medication, propranolol, without his blood pressure being taken. Due to negligence on the nurse who looked at a 3 a.m. blood pressure, and the aide who didn't take blood pressure.
He laid in that bed, dying, while his blood pressure tanked until 4 p.m. when God revealed to mom to check his blood pressure. He was given that medication at 9 a.m. and at 4 p.m. when the blood pressure was taken, at MOMS REQUEST, it was critically low and they took all kinds of interventions to try to correct it.
It should have been taken every 2 hours on PCU floor as that is THEIR POLICY.
It resulted in Luke being admitted back into the Intensive Care Unit, being brutally intubated and on a ventilator again, not only due to a major medical mistake at New Hanover Regional Medical Center, but because of Cigna's denial that resulted in him remaining here in this hospital when he should have already been at the Shepherd center over a week ago!
We want Cigna to do the right thing and approve Luke's admission to The Shepherd Center, our transportation there, and We want New Hanover Regional Medical Center as well as Cigna, to be held accountable for what you both have put Luke through.
Mom has been in that hospital since January 15th, diligently by his side and on her knees praying for him and God alone has spared him on multiple times during his stay here.
We shouldn't have to take to social media and think about starting a GoFundMe account and beg strangers to donate to help Luke when that is their responsibility as they have received hefty premiums as his insurance provider.
We would never have even thought about starting this to help pay for everything. And while we are fighting the insurance, we are also spending our days and nights at the hospital and this gets expensive. We put 1000 just because that’s the default amount. Anything helps and we feel bad even making this, but it’s been suggested we do so. Keep praying. And thank you so much.