KC STAR: KC nurse dies of COVID. Now husband is fighting for a vaccine he says he was promised.
Updated February 9, 2021 7:20 PM
Tracy Kolterman was known for her baking.
Between pulling loaves of bread from the oven, Kolterman worked as a nurse in a long-term care facility in Kansas City and was devoted to taking of care of people in need. She died Jan. 19 of complications from COVID-19.
Kolterman, 60, is remembered “as a kind, caring and devoted nurse,” according to her obituary. She was born in Bath, New York, on Aug. 30, 1960, but grew up in Clay Center, Kansas.
She married her husband, Greg Kolterman, in 2002. Now, he’s fighting to get the death benefits and a COVID-19 vaccine he said was promised to him after her death.
Greg Kolterman filed a death claim on Tuesday with the Missouri Department of Labor and Industrial Relations Division of Workers’ Compensation, stating that Tracy Kolterman contracted COVID-19 doing her job as a long-term charge nurse at McCrite Plaza at Briarcliff.
Attorneys for Greg Kolterman said he has not received death benefits from the insurance company and that a promised vaccine was stripped away after he sought legal assistance.
In a news release, attorney Brent Welder said “the workers’ insurance company has refused to give her widower the benefits he is legally entitled to receive.”
Welder, who represents Greg Kolterman along with Kristie Welder through Welder Firm LLC, said the nursing home at which Tracy Kolterman worked promised Greg Kolterman a vaccine. But when the company learned he had hired an attorney, Welder said, the long-term care facility director barred him from receiving the vaccine at McCrite Plaza, saying he should find somewhere else and “get in line.”
That was two days after he buried his wife.
Cassidy McCrite, director of the nursing home, said in a phone call Tuesday he is limited to what he can talk about because of the ongoing litigation.
The nursing home is family-owned, he said. His parents launched McCrite Plaza Topeka about 50 years ago. About eight years ago, McCrite said, the Briarcliff location launched.
“Tracy was a good lady,” he said. “She very much cared for the residents.”
In a letter sent to staff, residents and families when Tracy Kolterman died, McCrite wrote that she always put the residents first.
“I have struggled (to) put this letter together,” McCrite wrote. “No words can make this better. Please take advantage of the little moments we have with each other.”
The death claim that Greg Kolterman filed states his wife’s body was “ravaged by the virus — ultimately leading to her death.”
She went to the hospital on Dec. 19. Five weeks later, she died.
Kansas City Health Department spokeswoman Michelle Pekarsky said no positive cases have been reported at the facility in the last three weeks.
Tracy Kolterman earned several degrees — including in accounting and cosmetology — and graduated as a licensed practical nurse in 2009 from Colorado Technical School.
In addition to her husband, she leaves behind three children and 16 grandchildren.
Welder said the decision not to give Greg Kolterman a vaccine was “absolutely devastating, in Mr. Kolterman’s most vulnerable moments to be retaliated against just merely for doing exactly what his wife would have wanted him to do.”
The Welder Firm, in Kansas City, is a catastrophic injury and wrongful death law firm.
He hopes, he said, that the nursing home will pay the benefits and provide Greg Kolterman with a vaccine.
“Frankly I think not only was it cruel and wrong to take that away from him in the first place but I do think that it is also unlawful retaliation,” Welder said.
On McCrite Plaza’s website, the nursing home reports that staff and residents received the first round of vaccines in January. McCrite said in the letter that he is working to put together a support group and schedule a memorial service to honor those they have lost.
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