Marines investigating death of Camp Lejeune recruit

[thedrifter]

Marines investigating death of Camp Lejeune recruit
By Heather Brown

(Camp Lejeune, NC) June 21, 2005 - 21-year-old Brian Smith was participating in pre-scuba training at a pool on the outskirts of Camp Lejeune last Friday afternoon. He was preparing for a basic reconnaissance course: the special ops of the Marines.

Brian had signed up for the Marines in December. He just finished up boot camp and joined his unit one week before he died at the pool. Base officials say water instructors tried to revive him at the pool. EMS workers took over until he arrived at the nearby naval hospital where he was pronounced dead.

The Marines say an preliminary investigation is underway

This is the second death at a Marine Corps pool this year. In February, 19-year old Jason Tharp drowned during a basic water survival test at Parris Island. The Marines say he was in the middle of a 25-meter swim requirement and that he got into the water voluntarily that day.

Just 24 hours before Jason died, WIS cameras caught Jason and his drill instructor on tape. News 10 was told at the time that Jason wanted out of the Marines. Eight Marines have been suspended on suspicion of violating physical conduct rules since the video aired.

Three investigations into that case are still underway. There's no timeline yet on when those results will be released to the public.

Brian Smith is from Lawrenceville, Georgia, just outside of Atlanta. He's a third generation military man. His funeral is scheduled for Friday.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Article published Jun 28, 2005 <br />
Four Marines face discipline after recruit's death <br />
By BRUCE SMITH <br />
Associated Press Writer <br />
<br />
A water survival instructor at the Parris Island Marine Corps Depot...

[thedrifter]

Family struggles to understand son's training accident
Published Tuesday June 28 2005
By GEOFF ZIEZULEWICZ
The Beaufort Gazette

While hundreds of miles separate Malia Isaac from the West Virginia parents of Marine Corps recruit Jason Tharp, who died during water training Feb. 8 on Parris Island, she feels their pain.
Issac's son, Josh, also joined the Marines to earn money for school, and both men had written home early during their 12-week training to say how hard it was. Josh struggled with water combat survival training as well, and on the morning of June 30, 2003, he went under due to causes that were never concretely determined.

He's been in a vegetative state ever since.

And with the ongoing investigation into Tharp's death, Malia Isaac has asked the Marine Corps to re-open the case regarding what happened to her son nearly two years ago. The first Marine investigation into Josh's accident didn't determine exactly what happened that day.

Isaac, who lives in Georgia, said she's unsure if something went wrong during Josh's training or if she's just experiencing the endless "what-ifs" of a mother who hasn't heard her son's voice or seen him smile in nearly two years. They've been replaced by his distant, yet lucid, gaze.

"He has no brain activity at all," she said of Josh, now 20, who is confined to a wheelchair. "Maybe it's nothing, but I just feel I owe it to my son to find out exactly what happened."

Officials at Headquarters Marine Corps in Washington, D.C., confirmed earlier this month that they had received Isaac's March 1 letter of request to re-open the investigation, but that no decision has been made.

The investigation into what caused Tharp's death continues, and Isaac said that, regardless of the fate of her son's investigation, she feels for the Tharps.

"I know the shock they are feeling right now," Isaac said. "How did this happen to our sons? Their motives were so pure, and now there's so much grief. You're in shock and you're just numb."

A path to college

As he neared graduation day in 2003 at McIntosh High School in Peachtree City, Ga., an Atlanta suburb, Josh decided to enter the Marine Corps.

"He actually wanted to be an FBI agent," Isaac said, adding that her son decided to enlist to take the financial burden of school off his parents and to eventually make it to Marine Corps University at Quantico, Va. "I wasn't really happy, but once it was all said and done, I did support him, but he knew it wasn't the path I really wanted him to choose."

Josh enlisted in March 2003, and on May 27, two days after high school graduation, he set off for Parris Island.

Soon after arrival, Josh wrote home to his mom and sister.

"Dear Mom and Jill," he wrote. "I've been thinking of quitting, but I think I can make it. My shaking worries me though. I'll have many stories to tell you when I get home!"

Josh had slight involuntary tremors that ran in his family, but otherwise he was healthy, Isaac said. He had scuba dived and was a volunteer firefighter before heading off to Parris Island.

The Marine Corps investigation into Josh's accident portrayed him as a diminutive, yet very capable, recruit.

"Recruit Isaac was described by the series team and recruits alike as very highly motivated," according to the report. "Although small in stature, he was reported to be the loudest in the platoon."

A short time later, he wrote home again.

"It's a little tougher now physically, but easier mentally," he wrote in a hurried scribble. "I don't want to quit anymore!"

The accident

According to the investigation, Josh was in the middle of combat water survival training when a blank look came over his face as he was treading water. Soon after, he dipped below the surface, at which point an instructor dove in, brought him to the deck and crews began administering CPR.

The instructors worked to revive Josh until paramedics arrived, according to the report. He was taken to Naval Hospital Beaufort and then onto the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston.

Josh's condition initially improved upon arrival at the Naval Hospital emergency room, according to the report, but that did not last long.

"His condition began to degrade to coma, and tests given were inconclusive to the cause," the report states.

The probable cause of Josh's injuries is a condition known as hypoxia, when the brain doesn't receive sufficient oxygen, according to the report.

Josh was underwater for a few seconds before being pulled to safety, the report states, and severe brain injury usually occurs after two to three minutes without oxygen. The report states that CPR was initiated on Josh right after he was pulled from the pool.

According to the report, one cause of the lack of oxygen could have been a condition called laryngospasm, which results in a loss of air flow that is not readily recognizable or treatable with CPR. Another more probable cause, according to the report, is a theory posited by a doctor who examined the records and is an expert in water injuries.

The doctor theorized that a preexisting cyst in Isaac's lung may have caused Isaac to experience something called a "cerebral gas embolism," according to the report. An embolism is the sudden blocking of an artery by a blood clot or foreign material that moves through the bloodstream.

"If recruit Isaac had an existing alveolar cyst, which is not detectable under normal circumstances, and it burst with the pressure of the jump off the tower into deep water, it would take approximately 10 minutes for the embolism to go through the system," according to the opinions section of the report. "That is the approximate time that elapsed from when recruit Isaac jumped until his collapse."

The exact cause of Isaac's injury may never be known, unless an autopsy is conducted at the time of his death, said Maj. Ken White, a Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island spokesman.

"The Marine Corps said they think that's what happened, that there was something physically wrong with him," his mother said. "But until Josh passes away, there is no conclusive answer."

Josh's injuries won't kill him, but they have caused him to be largely brain dead, she said.

"The investigation found that we don't know, and will likely never know, what medical factors may have contributed to Private Isaac's condition," White said.

Lingering questions

Isaac said the Department of Veteran's Affairs has been helpful in taking care of Josh's needs. He is a Marine, and the Corps has paid for all his medical expenses, including the nursing home where he now resides near Peachtree City.

Still, she said questions abound in her mind regarding the investigation and what happened to her son.

According to the investigation, a doctor who dealt with Josh at MUSC was not directly interviewed by the investigating officer. Instead, a MUSC risk manager provided the details to Marine Corps investigators.

Isaac said she wants to know why the doctor wasn't interviewed directly.

"The inference that the investigating officer used third party or incomplete information in establishing findings of fact is false," White said, adding that all the information used was drawn directly from medical documentation and that the attending physician wasn't available due to patient load. "What's important here is the content, not the form of the analysis."

Isaac also wonders why the other three recruits who were taking part in the flotation exercise at the time of Josh's accident weren't interviewed directly.

"They never spoke to the other recruits in Josh's group of four," Isaac said. "My feeling is, wouldn't those three guys be closest to what was seen or done or heard?"

While all the recruits associated with Josh's training, the swim instructors on deck at the time of the accident and other staff were interviewed during the investigation, White said that the "swim group" that Josh was part of when he went under is randomly put together after recruits jump from the tower for the "abandon ship" exercise.

"The identity of members of the swim group is not documented," White said.

Isaac said that she has heard rumors that Josh asked for help before going under, and that she has spoke with different people present at the time who have given her conflicting stories.

"No one has reported any sign of seeing Private Isaac in distress prior to his collapse," White said. "While the Marine Corps empathizes with Malia Isaac's anger and frustration about what happened to her son, the Marine Corps respectfully disagrees with the inference that negligence somehow accounted for her son's condition."

Coping

Malia Isaac visits her son every day while his sister and dad make the trip several times a week.

"If you go in and he's awake, his eyes open," she said. "There are days when I honestly think he sees me and knows it's me, and I talk to him. We watch movies with him, or read to him."

Different therapies have been tried to get Josh to respond, Isaac said. One stimulation program involved trying to arouse Josh's senses by putting different things in his mouth to trigger a taste response. Scents were used, and gentle noises were played near his ears in hopes of eliciting a reaction, but to no avail.

"There's really no hope for recovery," Isaac said with the voice of a woman who is coming to accept a loss she finds unacceptable and inconceivable: the loss of her boy.

"There are times when his friends will come home from college and they'll come visit him," she said. "And I think, this just can't be real. He's in a nursing home. What is my 20-year-old doing with 80-year olds?"

"He was just trying to do something financially to make it easier on us. I know for a fact that's why he enlisted, and that hurts," she said. "I would have found the money somehow."

Ellie

[thedrifter]

June 28, 2005 <br />
Swim instructor faulted in <br />
recruit’s drowning death <br />
By C. Mark Brinkley <br />
Times staff writer <br />
<br />
A female swim instructor working with a recruit in a pool at Marine Corps Recruit Depot...

[thedrifter]

Report: Recruit's death 'preventable' <br />
Instructor faces disciplinary action for violation of standard training procedures <br />
Published Wednesday June 29 2005 <br />
By GEOFF ZIEZULEWICZ <br />
The Beaufort Gazette...