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For decades, Constantine “Gus” Kotsanis was a respected otolaryngologist in Grapevine, Texas. Having emigrated from Greece at age 15, Constantine became a University of Texas-Southwestern medical professor, a cancer and autism researcher and founder of the Kotsanis Institute of Functional Medicine.

In an interview with The Defender, Constantine’s son, Andy Kotsanis, said that in the 1980s, his father helped transform what was previously the Grapevine Medical Center into the Baylor Scott & White Medical Center — Grapevine, affiliated with Baylor University. It is now the largest not-for-profit health system in Texas.

It was in that same hospital, that on March 14, 2021, Constantine “violently lost his life,” his son said — days after being admitted with respiratory problems and a subsequent COVID-19 diagnosis.

Andy said he believes his father’s death resulted from the treatment he received, including remdesivir, fentanyl and other drugs Constantine and his family had not authorized.

Andy also alleges he was “threatened and assaulted by the police and the hospital administrator” as his father was dying, and barred from the room as his father passed away.

Today, Andy is raising awareness about his father’s death — and the stories of others who endured similar treatment — through his own activism and as a social media outreach coordinator for the FormerFedsGroup Freedom Foundation.

Andy discussed his family’s experience around his father’s hospitalization and subsequent death at Baylor Scott & White, and the activism he is now involved in as a result. He shared extensive documentation and photos with The Defender to corroborate his story.

Hospital president to victim’s family: ‘I’m not letting you see him’

Andy told The Defender that he was the very first baby born at Baylor Scott & White’s then-new outpatient operating room. Just days earlier, his father “was the first physician to do a procedure in that operating room,” he said. “So, there’s a very long history with my father and Baylor.”

“This is a story of tragedy, but also betrayal, because he helped build that place,” Andy said.

According to Andy, his father was not vaccinated for COVID-19. “He was not a fan of it,” he said. He said he now believes his father’s vaccination status may have played a crucial role in the treatment he received in the hospital.

After hearing about Gail Seiler’s story, Andy said, “Maybe they played that same game with him and did not tell the truth completely to us,” he said.

Andy said his father spent “a little over six days” in the hospital. He was admitted when “he had a hard time breathing. … He was really struggling, [in] a great state of hypoxia, almost to the point where he was exhausted with breathing.”

At the hospital, his father tested positive for COVID-19 and was admitted. According to Andy, the pulmonologist assigned to his father, Dr. Jagadeshwar Gummi Reddy, administered four rounds of remdesivir daily.

“At first, my father was calling me, saying ‘I feel a little bit better, everything’s fine,’” Andy said. “Then things started to go downhill very quickly. … I didn’t understand at the time what remdesivir was, how powerful it was and what it did to people or how deadly it was.”

A few days later, another phone call came from the hospital, this time from nurse Sarah Grice, who told Andy’s mother, “I had to put your husband in restraints, because he was confused about why he had tubes in his lungs.”

After his father’s death, Andy discovered that hospital medical records claimed no restraints were used.

“At the time, I didn’t know that there’s a formula that they follow: They sedate you and they’ll put you in restraints if they have to put remdesivir in you,” Andy said. “We requested to speak to the hospital administrator, Chris York, president of Baylor Grapevine at the time.”

According to Andy, York “arrogantly” told them, “‘I don’t care who your dad was or who your husband was, I’m not letting you see him.’ I said, ‘I think this is criminal. You’re not letting me see my dad. I don’t know what’s going on. Please let me see my father.’”

But York told them, “If you think it’s a crime, call the police,” according to Andy, who said, “I’ll never forget that sentence for the rest of my life.”

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Nurse ‘started performing the most violent chest compressions I’ve ever seen’

Grice called the family again, telling Andy’s mother, “Your husband said he wants to die and be put on a ventilator.” This sounded nothing like my dad, Andy said, “because all over his chart, it says he didn’t want to be intubated. No ventilator, no remdesivir.”

“So how do you go from ‘No, I don’t want to be on a ventilator’ to ‘I want to die, put me on the ventilator’ in a matter of less than six days?” Andy asked.

On what turned out to be the day before his father’s death, Andy, his mother and their attorney “barged in the front door … demanding to see my father,” Andy said. “We were ready to press charges if they didn’t let us in.”

Subsequently, York “made the decision to only let my mother in,” Andy said, while Reddy spoke to him in person. According to Andy, this discussion was peculiar.

“He came downstairs with his mask off, with his hands shaking like he was scared, like someone was after him,” Andy said. “He introduced himself [and said] ‘My hands are tied. There’s nothing I can do.’ I said, ‘That’s not a good answer, sir,’ and he just walked away. It was almost like he was being bullied.”

Reluctantly, Andy’s mother approved the use of the ventilator that day, Andy said. But at 5 a.m. the next morning, the hospital called to say his dad was coding.

Again, only one family member was allowed into Andy’s father’s hospital room, so the family decided to let Katerina, his sister, be that person.

Expecting “some humane treatment,” Andy said they were instead met at the front door by Donna, an older nurse, and Demorrius Jones, a policeman, who “arrogantly greeted us in a very rude way.”

According to Andy, they got York on the phone, who said, “No one can go into the room. You have to watch him die through the glass.”

Andy told The Defender that, through the glass, they saw nurse practitioner Rommel Villas Lantajo handing a syringe to Grice, who then injected Constantine.

“Before she injected him, I saw the heart monitor,” Andy said. “He had a pulse of 122. So, I’m thinking to myself ‘Why is he coding? He has a heartbeat.’”

After the injection, “his pulse started to drop rapidly, and she [the nurse] started to do the most violent chest compressions I’ve ever seen,” Andy said.

“His body was bouncing 10 inches off the table. It was like watching someone get chainsawed in half. It was very violent and brutal, and looked more like she was trying to kill him, not save his life,” Andy said.

Andy said his father’s health was “already compromised with all those drugs they gave him” in the preceding day, which included fentanyl, adding that “he was still on the ventilator when she [Grice] was doing what she was doing.”

Grice subsequently stopped administering chest compressions and, according to Andy’s mother, “turned off all the machines.” Immediately following this, “My dad lifted his chest off the table, and then he had a seizure and died in front of my mother” while she was screaming “Stop, stop, stop!”

Andy was not present as his father died, though, because the police officer had “forced me out of the ICU. He threatened to arrest me if I didn’t leave the hospital immediately.”

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Father’s death ‘malicious and arbitrary’

“They did this to a very kind, gentle soul,” Andy said, adding that his father’s death was “malicious and arbitrary, on behalf of Chris York, the administrator.”

“I’m still in shock,” Andy said, telling The Defender:

“The aftermath was so bad. I’m still in therapy over it. I’m very sad. I can’t put into words what a panic attack is like. I didn’t have irritable bowel syndrome until my dad died. You only get that when you experience something traumatic. Some people consider that a form of PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder].”

“I’ve had several panic attacks,” Andy added. “I’ve lost count.” He said he’s “almost had to institutionalize” his mom. “I put my whole life on hold and I’m still, to this day, at her aid, trying to help her. She’s still not the same,” he said.

Andy also noted the anomaly of an extraordinary number of pages — many of them duplicates — in his father’s medical charts. “You’re in the hospital for six days but the chart is 948 pages long?” he asked. Another anomalous document dealt with “permission to be filmed,” he said, calling it “a very suspicious document.”

‘This is a huge cover-up’

His father’s experience led Andy to become an activist, he said.

“I’m trying to promote my story on my website and to inform everyone, the whole planet, that we’re witnessing the collapse of the healthcare system. … They’re using drugs in hospitals that are clearly not working,” he said. “I’m trying to show people that this is what they did to me. This is what they probably plan to do to you if you’re in there.”

“If that’s how you want to say goodbye to a loved one, go to Baylor Scott & White,” Andy said. “They’ll be more than happy to accommodate you if that’s your desire. That’s how I feel about this organization.”

“Hopefully, in the future, this can be a reference point for people to go, ‘We don’t want to be like Baylor, don’t pull a Baylor, don’t be like Baylor.’ That’s where I’m going with this,” Andy said. “This was so vicious and atrocious. I’ll never forget it.”

Aside from his website, Andy’s activism has included “putting road signs out, [placing] cards on doors,” he said, adding that such acts are “perfectly legal in the state of Texas” due to the Texas Citizens’ Participation Act.

However, just weeks after Andy began these activities, he was warned by local police and a local detective to “be careful” where he placed his signs and cards because his “First Amendment rights are limited.”

Andy said he experienced more difficulty with police when he attempted to press manslaughter charges against Baylor Scott & White. Local police referred him to Baylor Police and the Texas Rangers. When Andy contacted the Rangers, they advised him to “start a paper trail” by calling Baylor Police.

Yet, Baylor Police refused to take a report, telling him to “call our legal department.”

“So, this is a huge cover-up,” Andy told The Defender. “The police are covering up, in my opinion, what I would consider a homicide.”

Andy said his efforts, though, have managed to secure a degree of professional difficulty for York. According to Andy, “He orchestrated this, and now he’s no longer in the state of Texas. For a small while, he was an administrator in Arkansas, but thanks to my efforts informing his new employer, he’s no longer [there].”

In addition to his individual activism, Andy joined the FormerFedsGroup Freedom Foundation, which advocates on behalf of victims of COVID-19 hospital protocols and others with similar experiences. He described them as “the best group you can find if you’re a victim.”

“We’re on a mission,” Andy said. “We’re here to help as many people get as many stories out there and turn the narrative around.”

Many people have reached out to him through the FormerFeds Group but also through his own website, said Andy, describing similar treatment that they or loved ones experienced at hospitals, including at Baylor Scott & White.

Referring to the COVID-19-related hospital protocol prescribed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Andy said he is not certain if it was followed by Baylor Scott & White in his father’s case. But he noted that his and other victims’ experience make it sound like “there’s a formula they’re following.”

Andy said these efforts are important to everyone, even if they haven’t been victims of COVID-19 hospital protocols or similar treatment.

“We all get old and will need a little extra attention,” he said. “The question is, what kind of attention is that going to be? I’m hoping it’s going to be a real standard of care.”

Andy shared some words of advice for individuals who have had similar experiences or who may end up in the hospital for similar reasons.

“If you can get the chart, get the chart, print the chart. Read it before you do any reporting. Do your own homework,” he said.

He also recommends seeking professional help to grieve. “It’s okay to ask for help.”

“Also, understand that there are people like me out there, a lot of us that are going to, for as long as we’re alive, try to turn this thing around,” he added. “Don’t give up because you feel like you’re going nowhere. I have felt that way many times. … Believe in yourself. Don’t give up. Be persistent.”