A World War II veteran who died alone in a nursing home just before his 99th birthday will be honored by leaders of the Los Angeles community and the nurses who called him “family.”
Col. Norman Wyles had three Purple Hearts, he was a decorated U.S. Marine. He was also loved by the people put in charge to care for him.
“This personality bellowed through the ER. It was like a magnet. You were drawn to him,” Suzanne Silva said, one of Wyles’ nurses.
In 2011, he rolled into Silva and Emily Brown’s lives when he arrived at the emergency room of the Northridge Hospital Medical Center.
He was treated and eventually released where he would spend the last days of his life in a nursing home.
Estranged from his daughter, Wyles’ had no other family to care for him.
“For the last four years, we’ve adopted him and he’s adopted us, he’s become family to us,” Brown said.
When Wyles died on Feb. 24, one of Silva’s worst fears came true. The nurses he called his daughters weren’t notified of his death, “because we were not ‘family,’” she said.
The Los Angeles County Fire Department will do a fly over in Granada Hills at about 2:00 p.m. in honor of Wyles memory. Members of the LA City Fire Department, the Marine Corp League, the LA Police Board and local scout troops will join in the celebration.
And of course, the nurses that cared for him till his final days will be there too.
