Octuplets' Mom Collected $165K in Disability

A California agency paid Nadya Suleman over $165,000 in disability benefits for an on-the-job back injury, records obtained by AP reveal. Suleman was employed at a state mental health hospital from 1997 until December, although records show that her injuries—which were aggravated by pregnancy—left her unable to work for much of that time.

Suleman was injured in 1999 while helping to restrain a patient during a riot in the women's ward of the mental hospital. Records show that Suleman was reluctant to have surgery and at one point refused to have X-rays taken, fearing they would interfere with her fertility treatments. She told psychiatric evaluators that the injury had caused her to become depressed, but the birth of her first child "helped my spirits." (More Nadya Suleman stories.)