Hyder: Extreme anxiety

Stress at work led to Aug. 5 blackout, says ex-county deputy prison warden, who was on paid sick leave from Aug. 6 until recent layoff

Former Luzerne County deputy prison warden Sam Hyder testified Tuesday that he should be entitled to workers’ compensation because working conditions made him stressed, anxious, depressed and ultimately led to an Aug. 5 blackout.

He cited several examples of working conditions, claiming:

• Commissioner Chairwoman Maryanne Petrilla threatened to get rid of him and pushed for the hiring or promotion of people he did not believe were qualified.

• The state Attorney General’s Office publicly identified him as one of the people who helped bring charges against a former prison guard and others involved in a motorcycle club cocaine trafficking ring, resulting in death threats against him and his family.

• His assignment to inform prison employees who failed random drug tests that they were being suspended and/or terminated made him feel personally responsible when one of the impacted employees committed suicide.

• He was forced to attend the autopsy of an inmate because the prison’s medical supervisor was unavailable. The coroner made him hold organs, and the experience has caused him to have nightmares.

• Intense media coverage, admittedly often about questionable debit card spending, has prevented him from going out in public without hearing negative comments.

The hearing was in the state Labor and Industry Department’s Wilkes-Barre office.

Hyder, who was hired as deputy warden in 2004, had been on paid sick leave since Aug. 6 until he was furloughed from the $74,263-a-year position last Friday, officials say. The county is contesting his workers’ compensation claim, which was filed in September.

Judge Brian Hemak scheduled another hearing on March 9, in part because county solicitor Steve Menn said he must bring in witnesses who will rebut Hyder’s testimony.

Hyder was represented by Joseph Hutteman, who will be paid by receiving 20 percent of any award granted to Hyder.

Petrilla said she welcomes the opportunity to testify and denies exerting influence on hiring.

Hyder said pressure was exerted three or four times, but he could only identify one of the employees – Joseph Petrovich, who was promoted from guard to lieutenant in February 2008.

Petrovich has said he was the guard with the most seniority to apply for that position.

Petrilla said Tuesday that prison operations have improved during Hyder’s absence, including a reduction in spending.

“There are many positive changes that have transpired, and Mr. Hyder had a hard time dealing with it because he was no longer in charge,” she said.

Hyder testified for nearly two hours Tuesday. He said he didn’t remember the blackout and woke up when the ambulance was transporting him to Wilkes-Barre General Hospital.

He said he started having “extreme anxiety problems” about a year before the blackout and would sometimes go two or three days without sleeping because he was worried about the prison.

He said he had difficulty eating and sleeping and would have panic attacks with difficulty breathing. He said he would sometimes run to Wilkes-Barre from his home in Hanover Township in the middle of the night for no reason.

When asked to pinpoint the time his work stress started increasing, Hyder said it was when Petrilla became commissioner in January 2008. He said she told him she has “no use for” him and said he was “with (former) Commissioner (Greg) Skrepenak.”

Skrepenak and Hyder were close friends. Skrepenak resigned as commissioner in December and pleaded guilty last month to accepting a bribe from a contractor.

Menn repeatedly got Hyder to acknowledge that Petrilla was only one of five votes on the prison board when he worked for the county.

Hyder said the cocaine drug trafficking bust evolved from his investigation of tips that drugs were being sold in the prison, possibly involving employees.

He said there was an “alarming rate of drug activity” in the prison, and some inmates were taken to the hospital on the verge of overdosing.

Hyder said the Attorney General’s Office could not explain why he was named for assisting investigators in the affidavit.

Prison guard John Gonda was among 22 people charged in March in connection with a $3.6 million cocaine ring operated by members of the Outlaws Motorcycle Club. Gonda pleaded guilty and awaits sentencing.

Hyder testified Tuesday that he received a threatening letter and was told that there was a contract on his life. He said an associate of Gonda’s confronted him in a restaurant and told him he and his family would die because he ruined Gonda’s life. Hyder said he reported the threat to authorities but was offered no protection and does not feel safe.

The suicide committed by a prison sergeant occurred in May, the morning that Hyder was scheduled to meet with him to discuss his employment status, Hyder said. Hyder said the man was “a very close friend.”

“It made me feel that it was partially my fault,” Hyder said, noting that he is unable to overcome his grief.

Menn asked Hyder whether he notified his supervisor about his concerns about working conditions.

Menn also referenced medical reports indicating that Hyder had been diagnosed with anxiety years before his blackout. He also hinted that Hyder told his doctor about other personal issues that contributed to his stress from 2003 to the present, but Hyder denied that.

Prison Warden Joseph Piazza also testified Tuesday. Piazza, who became warden in February 2009, said prison jobs are stressful by nature and acknowledged that he’s been threatened “many, many times” by inmates.

This is the third time since 1994 that Hyder has sought compensation payments from the prison for work-related injuries.

Records reviewed by The Times Leader in 2004 showed Hyder was awarded compensation payments for a 1994 incident in which he injured his back after he pushed an inmate out of the way of weights that were falling from a hand cart.

In 2000, Hyder accepted a $70,000 settlement on a compensation claim related to injuries he suffered in 1998 while attempting to protect an inmate who was being attacked by other prisoners. Hyder suffered serious injuries, including partial hearing loss in one ear, after he was struck in the head by a weight wielded by one of the attackers.

Hyder left employment with the prison in 2000 but returned in 2004 to take the deputy warden job.

Hyder said Tuesday that he had tried “everything under the sun” to return to work after the 1998 compensation claim, but the county had no light duty work and was not willing to promote him to management. He said he could have sued the county over his injuries but did not.

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Luzerne County Government

He testifies he deserves workers’ comp

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