HAYWARD — Cynthia Fernandez has had loads of time over the previous month to mirror on the 16 years she knew her ex-husband and father of her son, Nathan Hoang, and to ponder precisely what occurred the morning he was killed.
“He was such a good man. Nathan had a huge heart. He cared for people, he was kind. He was always for doing the right thing,” Fernandez mentioned in an interview, earlier than addressing the circumstances round his dying. “Even in that situation, it’s like, that wasn’t him. That was his mental illness.”
Hoang, a 41-year-old Hayward native, died 9 days after a paramedic injected him with a controversial sedative that has been linked to different fatalities, after a struggled with Hayward police on March 12. He had reportedly proven as much as a house seeking his kids — one thing his ex-wife says was a standard response to psychosis — and wrestled with officers till being tased, handcuffed and positioned on a gurney.
The choice to not disclose what had occurred, Hayward’s police chief mentioned in a press release this week, was as a result of “sensitive” nature of the investigation.
However one factor that has been lacking up to now is a have a look at Hoang’s life — and the way he got here to be on Virginia Road in Hayward that evening.
“We want people to know who Nathan was,” Fernandez mentioned. “He was a Marine who suffers from PTSD and he was having a mental breakdown.”
Hoang, who leaves behind six kids, grew up in Hayward and enlisted into the U.S. Marine Corps virtually out of highschool, at age 19. The 12 months was 2001, when the nation was gearing up for 2 wars within the Center East. Hoang quickly discovered himself among the many tens of 1000’s of troopers stationed abroad.
He returned from two fight excursions in Iraq a modified man, Fernandez mentioned.
“The war took a toll on him,” she mentioned. “I wish I would have asked him for stories. He never shared anything in detail with me. I know he lost a lot of buddies out there.”
Different fellow troopers he knew died by suicide after returning house, she mentioned.
Hoang was given an honorable discharge for disabilities, on account of his publish traumatic stress dysfunction. Again within the Bay Space, he and Fernandez met, fell in love, received married and had a toddler.
“For my son, this is a huge loss. Not only did he lose his father but the way that he lost his father,” Fernandez mentioned. “(Hoang) was a wonderful man, wonderful father to all his kids.”
Hoang’s dying stays beneath investigation. Police have positioned a maintain stopping the coroner from releasing data, however the police report says Hoang was animated till eight minutes after a Falck ambulance worker injected him with midazolam. Hoang then yelled that he couldn’t breathe, and have become unresponsive seven minutes later, in response to authorities.
Offered beneath the model title Versed, midazolam was the topic of an Related Press investigation final 12 months that recognized 94 cases throughout america — from 2012 to 2021 — the place an individual died in police custody after being injected with it. Sixteen of these deaths occurred in California, together with in Oakland, Richmond, Pleasanton and San Francisco.
The position sedatives might have performed in every of the 94 deaths was unattainable to find out, the AP reported. Medical consultants informed the AP that the drug’s influence might be negligible in individuals who already have been dying — the ultimate straw that triggered coronary heart or respiratory failure within the medically distressed — or the principle explanation for dying when given within the mistaken circumstances or mishandled.
Hayward police Chief Bryan Matthews mentioned in a press release the investigation stays underway, and that the Alameda County District Lawyer’s Workplace is conducting a probe.
“Hayward Police Department investigators and investigators from other involved agencies are still in the fact-finding phases of this investigation. There is much we do not know and many questions that still must be answered,” Matthews mentioned.
A spokesperson for Falck mentioned “privacy laws” stop the ambulance firm from “discussing any care we provide a patient,” however added that “Falck stands behind the care provided by our dedicated paramedics and EMTs across Alameda County.”
The main points round Hoang’s dying echo related incidents involving army veterans. Final 12 months, the town of Antioch paid $7.5 million to settle a lawsuit by the household of a Navy veteran, Angelo Quinto, who died in a struggled with cops who restrained him and sat on his legs. In 2020, the town of Alameda paid $250,000 in the same settlement to the household of Shelby Gattenby, an Iraq Struggle veteran who served within the Navy, and died in a battle — which included use of a stun gun — with 4 Alameda officers.
Like Quinto, Hoang had been identified with a psychological well being dysfunction. Fernandez mentioned Hoang sought out medication — police say he appeared excessive on methamphetamine, which was present in his automobile — to take care of PTSD, but it surely made issues worse. He would cycle by year-long durations of sobriety, then relapse.
Usually, throughout instances of psychosis, he would think about threats to his household, she mentioned.
“His mind would go back to being back in Iraq. And for some reason he’d be looking for his children every time,” Fernandez mentioned. That’s what she believes he was doing on March 12, in the course of the 4 a.m. battle with police and paramedics.
“He thought his children were in danger that night. He went back to war that night,” she mentioned. “His thoughts were, ‘Where’s my family, are they safe.’”
