Families Fight for Northern Va. Training Center

HERNDON, Va. -- Susan Infeld, a registered nurse, remembers vividly the night she knew she had to get involved with the Northern Virginia Training Center. She was working as a hospice nurse at a local hospital when a patient from NVTC came in suffering from pneumonia in the middle of the night.

"We eventually had to put him on a ventilator, but he had a ‘Do Not Resuscitate,’" she said. "This man’s parents were elderly and not in the state, and we couldn’t get a hold of them. So we called the center to tell them the situation, and they said ‘wait.’ Soon a physician, social worker, nursing assistant and the director of nursing showed up at the hospital to be with him as he died," she said. "We all stood around this man, holding hands and praying as he died surrounded by the people who had cared for him over the past dozen years. In all my years in the medical profession, I’ve never seen that kind of compassion and concern so far above and beyond what anyone could expect."

Located in Fairfax on Braddock Road, the Northern Virginia Training Center houses residents with intellectual and other disabilities, but is currently in danger of being shut down.