Iraq vet to get special care in Virginia
By Lou Michel
Updated: 03/10/08 6:46 AM


Christopher Kreiger, featured last Monday in The Buffalo News in an article raising concerns over Veterans Affairs medical treatment for returning Iraq combat veterans, now is scheduled to be admitted to an out-of-state VA facility specializing in brain trauma.

Kreiger, 35, of the Town of Tonawanda, said he received word from the neurology department at Buffalo Veterans Affairs Medical Center the day after the story appeared that he is to report March 19 to Hunter Holmes McGuire VA Medical Center in Richmond, Va.

“It shouldn’t come down to where it takes forever,” Kreiger said. “I was told back in January that the arrangements were made, and I was going to be leaving in two weeks. It never happened.”

For six months, Kreiger has suffered mysterious undiagnosed seizures and said he was promised in January that he would be placed at one of four major VA facilities specializing in traumatic brain injuries, or TBIs, as they are known.

TBIs have become the signature injury of the Iraq War because so many soldiers and Marines have been exposed to the fierce concussive forces of roadside improvised explosive devices at close range.

“Three times I was in a vehicle about 10 feet away from a roadside bomb, and a fourth time it was a direct hit. It knocked me unconscious when I was up in the gun turret, and the lieutenant had to pull me from the Humvee,” Kreiger said.

When he returned home from the war in 2004 with the Army National Guard’s 105th Military Police Company after more than a year away, Kreiger said, the right side of his face twitched uncontrollably, and he had lost hearing in his right ear.

“A neurologist at the VA told me that it was nothing to worry about and sent me home. So for the last few years, I’ve had this twitching that has turned into full-blown seizures,” said the veteran, who also wears a hearing device.

Before he heads to the VA facility in Richmond, Kreiger said he has to spend several days in Women and Children’s Hospital in Buffalo, where his brain waves will be monitored.

lmichel@buffnews.com

Ellie