Insurer Seeks To End Nursing Assistant Services For Wheelchair-Bound Former Dallas Officer

DALLAS, TX — Like lawyers and journalists (newly nicknamed "the enemy of the American people" by Donald Trump), insurance companies sometimes get a bad rap. A case in Dallas might yield clues into derision sometimes aimed at the latter.

Carlton Marshall, a quadriplegic confined to a wheelchair after being shot in the neck while serving a drug warrant as a Dallas Police Department lieutenant, recently got a letter from his insurance company. The news wasn't good.

Tri-Star Risk Management, which handles the former police officer's worker compensation coverage, wrote to tell him they likely won't be able to continue covering the cost of providing a nursing assistant, WFAA reported. Unable to perform even the most mundane tasks of daily life since being shot ten years ago, Marshall depends on a certified nursing assistant for everything from help going to the bathroom to getting in and out of his wheelchair.

It was only recently, after a decade's worth of physical therapy, that Marshall has been able to golf a little bit and return to his welding hobby — diversions to which he's finally able to avail himself albeit tentatively and with great effort and concentration.

Learning of his progress, Tri-Star Risk Management sent him that letter recently, expressing their new assessment of his needs.

"It appears they feel that I am too active to need a certified nursing assistant," Marshall, who still can't walk and can barely hear after being shot in the neck, told WFAA. "And they think that if I can play golf and if I can weld and I can do this and that that I am too able-bodied to need the level of care that I need at this time."

Reacting to WFAA's story, an attorney for Tri-Risk Star Management called the station to say he was legally bound not to comment on the case. Meanwhile, Marshall, father of two, is left anxious and wondering when the services of the nursing assistant on which he depends daily will be taken from him.

"What it boils down to is money and business," he ruefully told a reporter.

>>> See the full story at WFAA

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