Amputee vet awarded disability -- but it amounts to around $200 extra a month

Ron Mayo's odyssey through the disability maze in the Department of Veterans Affairs started with a case of plantar fasciitis.

Mayo, a veteran of the 82nd Airborne Division, got a cortisone shot in his left foot at the Fayetteville VA Medical Center in December 2011. The foot then became infected, and he was airlifted to Carolinas Medical Center in Concord, where he ended up on life support.

After seven weeks in the hospital, mostly at the Durham VA Medical Center, Mayo was sent home. But the pain in his foot didn't subside, and he returned to the Durham VA a couple of months later, where doctors told him they needed to amputate his left leg below the knee because the infection had spread to his bones.

Since that amputation, Mayo has been fighting with the Veterans Benefits Administration for disability due to the loss of part of his leg.

After seven years of applying, denials and appeals, Mayo finally won his case this year when a VBA judge awarded him a 40 percent disability rating. That translates to a couple of hundred dollars a month on top of the disability he already receives for depression.

“I think it’s disgusting,” says Mayo of the rating.

While he thinks losing a leg deserves more compensation, the fact the VA finally admitted it caused the infection was a big victory for him.

“The fact they granted it was a major, major positive thing,” he said.

Still, Mayo questions why he and other veterans have to wait not months, but in most cases years, to get a decision,

“It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure this out. You get a shot, two days later you're sitting in ICU, your body shuts down, you get [airlifted] to Concord ... [and] almost died twice,” he said.

Most veterans feel the system is stacked against them, instead of working for them, he said.

“It just seemed like, going fighting the system, they want you to give up," he said. "You either got [to] give up or die is what they want."

Mayo's fight for disability support picked up key backing in January 2017, when an infectious disease expert at the Durham VA wrote a letter stating that Mayo did lose part of leg as "a direct result of the cortisone injection procedure performed at the Fayetteville VAMC."

He submitted the letter as evidence in his appeal with the VA's disability board. But the board sent back a letter saying officials needed more information about his claim, including which leg he was trying to get disability for.

"It's in the medical records," a flabbergasted Mayo said at the time. "I've got copies of it. They've got copies of it."

Mayo’s latest appeal included a much more thorough medical rationale, again stating the shot at the VA was the cause of the amputation. The new evidence was enough to finally convince a judge that Mayo’s loss of his leg was service-related.

“Your attitude is the healing process. Now that the final appeals been done, my attitude has calmed down,” he said.