A secret settlement has prompted questions.
Were the real circumstances of Neil Armstrong's death kept from the world when he died seven years ago?
Now comes the revelation that the 82-year-old legend's death was allegedly due to shoddy medical care and he didn't have to die.
A front-page report in Wednesday’s New York Times states that Armstrong’s family entered into a secret $6 million wrongful death settlement with the hospital where he died. The newspaper reports it learned about the settlement after it received 93 pages of documents from an anonymous whistleblower.
Harvard’s Dr. Ashish Jha reviewed the documents for the Times. He said the American hero's death was "wholly preventable.”
"It certainly seems like the care at the end of life for Neil Armstrong was not optimal. Given the procedure he had, he really should have gone back to the operating room as soon as it became obvious that he was having a substantial bleeding," Jha told Inside Edition.
Armstrong underwent heart bypass surgery at Mercy Health — Fairfield Hospital in Ohio in 2012 but complications reportedly occurred when a nurse pulled out wires from a temporary pacemaker. Armstrong started bleeding.
Armstrong lingered for a week before dying. Thousands of mourners attended Armstrong’s memorial service at the National Cathedral in August 2012.
The hospital was so concerned about keeping the family's complaint a secret, it used a phony name, calling him Ned Anderson not Neil Armstrong.
The hospital told Inside Edition it couldn't comment, but according to the Times the hospital stood by its care but paid the family the $6 million settlement to keep the matter private and avoid potentially devastating publicity.
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