(RepublicanView.org) – A whistleblower from Boeing has died from a sudden infection that became severe very quickly.
Forty-five-year-old Joshua Dean, died after a brief battle with a serious illness. Dean reportedly went to the hospital over breathing issues and developed pneumonia soon after. That led to MRSA, a deadly bacterial infection.
He was eventually flown from Wichita, KS, to a hospital in Oklahoma City. Doctors tried to save him with an ECMO machine, a device that essentially works in place of the heart and lungs. At one point, it was revealed that he also had a stroke. Doctors began considering limb amputation after exhausting all other options. He died just two weeks after his initial hospital visit while hospitalized in critical condition.
Before his death, Dean was working with a South Carolina legal firm on his whistleblower case against Boeing. The firm also previously worked with John “Mitch” Barnett, another whistleblower suing the jet manufacturer. Barnett only just died in March 2024. The 62-year-old’s death was declared a suicide. Barnett was regularly attending depositions and expressed a strong desire to raise awareness of potentially deadly safety issues with his former employer.
Dean risked a lucrative position with Spirit Aerosystems, a company that builds aircraft components for Boeing, in 2022. He began working for the company as a quality auditor in 2019. He discovered alleged issues with poorly drilled holes in the bulkheads of parts designed for 373 Max jets and attempted to raise the concerns with management. However, he reportedly went to the media after company leadership ignored him. He was fired less than a year after. He later said during an interview that his termination was meant to send the message that concerns about safety issues will be silenced rather than corrected.
Dean’s death comes after a third whistleblower, Sam Salehpour, also raised concerns about Boeing’s safety procedures and testified in front of a Senate subcommittee.
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