 During a premiere of the Big Con at the Mountain Arts Center Wednesday, the family of a former con client, Vanessa Stapleton, came in support of their daughter, who lost her life in September of 2021 due to complications from a severe allergic reaction. Well, she'd lost her disability like I was telling them in September 2016 and then she'd re-sign back up and fightin' around with it and stuff and then like when she had that allergic reaction and then with that epic pen and everything not workin' right and all the messin' not comin' out of it and she coded died, she's down 20 minutes before they revived her and then she got bed fastened and then she's in hospital and facilities for like seven months straight and then, you know, it was hard cause with her, with it's just like Medicaid, you couldn't get her in like a regular facility or something to really try to help her cause she didn't have the good enough insurance if she'd been drawin' her disability, it would've been better to where she could've got into one better and stuff to try to help her and everything. Before Vanessa's passing, in September of 2016, Vanessa was sent a letter that she would no longer be receiving social security benefits. In 2019, Vanessa encountered a severe allergic reaction which left her family searching for help. During that time, the Social Security Administration expected Vanessa to pay those funds back even while enduring complications from her disability. Oh, I went through a lot. Hit our daughter, she was gettin' them letters like that pretty often before she took sick, you know, got bed fastened and it was drivin' her crazy. It was eatin' at her, you know, mentally, physically. It was, yeah, I wondered how she was gonna pay her bills and then she had them two kids tryin' to raise and do things with him and everything and she had her hands full. We are Pikeville Medical Center and we are an amazing place to work. We help care heroes of all types work here, all who deserve great rewards. So while our heroes are working hard to take care of our patients and visitors, we are taking care of them with top-tier benefits, higher pay rates, and great sign-on bonuses. So join our team today. So what are you waiting for? Apply today! Incredible opportunities await at PMCJobs.org. Had it not been for Social Security taking away Vanessa's benefits, Stapleton says those funds could have helped Vanessa receive proper medical attention. Oh, well, that would have helped her like with her bills and stuff, that would have helped get her where she'd have better insurance to get her better therapy and everything and then plus getting her back and forth to the doctors and everything better and stuff. It just, you know, it's a struggle when, you know, you don't have that and like I said that insurance is worth a fortune. Through the struggle of not having benefits in the death of Vanessa, something Stapleton hopes others take away from the premiere is to never give up hope. I hope they realize they see, you know, the kind of struggles and everything that we went through ourselves that I know they've got it bad but maybe they don't think that they've got it to where they can't try to, you know, try to fight for what's theirs and try to get back what's theirs, what is right, you know, I'm saying to just help them hold on to what they can get and stuff to, you know, try to help themselves. For Mountaintop News, I'm Joel Courgel.