Airman preparing for Iraq dies during training

[leftchick]

FORT BLISS, Texas -- An Arizona airman who died at an Army hospital while training for deployment to Iraq has been identified as Senior Airman Leonard Hankerson Jr.


Hankerson, 24, was participating in a training exercise at McGregor Range on Saturday when he became ill and was rushed to nearby William Beaumont Army Medical Center, where he later died.

Clarence Davis III, a hospital spokesman, said Wednesday that autopsy results are pending but that Hankerson died of some sort of illness.

Hankerson, a security forces patrolman assigned to the 56th Security Forces Squadron at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona, had been at Fort Bliss since Jan. 31. He was scheduled to deploy to Iraq later this spring.

http://www.kristv.com/Global/story.asp?S=4509444&nav=Bsmh

[Divernan]

1. An "illness"?- Army medical centers as bad as the VA Hospitals.

I expected a diagnosis of heart failure - such as you occasionally see with high school or college athletes who drop dead on the playing field. But "illnesses" do not kill instantly. According to this story, the Army hadn't even diagnosed what the "illness" was before this young man died. Of course this is another piece of crap reporting, where the story doesn't state the date on which he was "rushed" to the hospital and the date he died.
As to the Army medical center, yet more proof that when it comes to providing support to "our troops", no medical care is too cut-rate. During Vietnam, my dentist cousin was in the Army and distressed by the fact that the Army took the position that it was cheaper to pull enlisted men's teeth than to perform a root canal or put in major fillings.

[Cobalt Violet]

2. Was this anywhere near where Cheney was shooting?

:shrug: First thing that went through my mind.

[keopeli]

4. nope...it's 1000 miles away. n/t

[Az_lefty]

3. I deployed through Bliss on my way to Iraq...

and stayed at MCGregor Range. Some of the barracks our troops were staying in were full of mold. They were nasty! If this condition still exists it may account for this Ahriman's illness.

[WhiteTara]

5. could it have been from the injections

that they routinely give soldiers? I know a young man who was given strange injections and developed cancer symptoms.

[MadMaddie]

6. Some history on respiratory illness in the military

This has been a problem for military training bases for 20 or so years.

This may or may not be related but some bad decisions have left many of our young soldiers in training dead!

<snip>
Soldiers in basic training once received vaccines to protect them against adenovirus, which causes fever and cold symptoms. In 1996, the manufacturer stopped producing the vaccine. In March 1997, the army stopped vaccine administration so that the limited supplies could be reserved for use during the peak season for respiratory disease, September through March. In May 1997, however, soldiers in basic training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, began to get sick with adenovirus. From May until December, 673 soldiers, both men and women, reported to sick call and tested positive for adenovirus. Soon after vaccinations were resumed in November, the outbreak ended
<snip>

Read entire article...
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/press_r/mcneill_pr.htm

[Katreniav]

7. Hantavirus

Hantavirus is a killer I know first hand. My husband died from this so called illness.
NOT an illness but a deadly virus which causes an illness maybe all I know it kills fast.
Took hubby to Dr on a wed and the next day , Thurs. he was dead.