I wonder if she had an underlying condition?...
Either way, very sad for a young girl.
Wanting and Doing it is not the same. I feel sorry for family.
Every year young people die in boot camp, mostly from heart conditions that went undetected until they put their bodies under physical stress (many for the first time ever). That it happened to two young women in a row is just dumb luck. The media will probably try to play up the gender issue but young men die in boot camp all the time. It’s not that unusual.
There was a brief scare of meningitis at the San Diego training center while I was there, but I don’t think anyone died from it. You can’t very well stop PT for this. Sad.
Back in the day, I recall that I had to spend an entire day keeping doctor & dentist appointments before I got my orders to report for Basic. One of those appointments was a treadmill run while connected to a machine.
I wonder if they’ve relaxed those requirements to ensure fitness for training...
The girls are dying while the Romney boys stay home. Resume the draft and raise the standards...we know from the VA that women are far more likely to have long term physical problems from the rigors of military service.
There is no difference between men and women and anyone who says there is should be executed.
Great Lakes Boot Camp for Navy recruits. Cold in fall/winter/spring and hot/high humidity in summer and early fall.
I went thru Navy bootcamp in Orlando...June, July & August. Guys were dropping like flies on the Grinder (concrete parade ground). It was brutal heat.
Terrible. Probably a pre existing issue that nobody caught. Full military funeral.
For many it is the first time for strenuous activity. I went into basic training in January after playing college football that previous fall. I didn’t have a problem.
Sorry for her and her family’s loss. Sad that it turned out this way.
S happens.
I would be interested to know how many men drop dead at some point in basic training.
Found this, and it’s interesting.
1977 - 2001
Traumatic deaths during U.S. Armed Forces basic training, 1977-2001.
Abstract
BACKGROUND:
A Recruit Mortality Registry, linked to the Department of Defense Medical Mortality Registry, was created to provide comprehensive medical surveillance data for deaths occurring during enlisted basic military training.
METHODS:
Recruit deaths from 1977 through 2001 were identified and confirmed through redundant sources. Complete demographic, circumstantial, and medical information was sought for each case and recorded on an abstraction form. Mortality rates per 100,000 recruit-years were calculated by using recruit accession data from the Defense Manpower Data Center.
RESULTS:
There were 276 recruit deaths from 1977 through 2001 and age-specific recruit mortality rates were less than half of same-age U.S. civilian mortality rates. Only 28% (77 of 276) of recruit deaths were classified as traumatic (suicide, unintentional injury, and homicide), in comparison to three quarters in both the overall active duty military population and the U.S. civilian population (ages 15-34 years). The age-adjusted traumatic death rates were highest in the Army (four times higher than the Navy and Air Force, and 80% higher than the Marine Corps). The majority (60%) of traumatic deaths was due to suicide, followed by unintentional injuries (35%), and homicide (5%). The overall age-adjusted traumatic mortality rate was more than triple for men compared with women in all military services (rate ratio=3.9; p=0.01).
CONCLUSIONS:
There was a lower proportion of traumatic deaths in recruits compared to the overall active duty military population and same-age U.S. civilian population. This finding could be attributed to close supervision, emphasis on safety, and lack of access to alcohol and motor vehicles during recruit training.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15026098
Nontraumatic deaths during U.S. Armed Forces basic training, 1977-2001.
Abstract
BACKGROUND:
A Recruit Mortality Registry, linked to the Department of Defense Medical Mortality Registry, was created to provide comprehensive medical surveillance data for deaths occurring during enlisted basic military training.
METHODS:
Recruit deaths from 1977 through 2001 were identified and confirmed through redundant sources. Complete demographic, circumstantial, and medical information was sought for each case and recorded on an abstraction form. Mortality rates per 100,000 recruit-years were calculated by using recruit accession data from the Defense Manpower Data Center.
RESULTS:
There were 276 recruit deaths from 1977 through 2001 and age-specific recruit mortality rates were less than half of same-age U.S. civilian mortality rates. The majority (72%) of recruit deaths were classified as nontraumatic and 70% of these deaths (139 of 199) were related to exercise. Of the exercise-related deaths, 59 (42%) were cardiac deaths, and heat stress was a primary or contributory cause in at least 46 (33%). Infectious agents accounted for only 49 (25%) of the nontraumatic deaths. Nontraumatic death rates increased with age (rate ratio is 2.5 for 25+ v <25 years; p<0.001). The age- and gender-adjusted nontraumatic death rates were 2.6 times higher for African American than non-African American recruits (p<0.001).
CONCLUSIONS:
Although recruit mortality rates are lower than the same-age U.S. civilian population, preventive measures focused on reducing heat stress during exercise might be effective in decreasing the high proportion of exercise-related death. The availability of 25 years of comprehensive recruit mortality data will permit the ongoing evaluation of cause-of-death trends, effectiveness of preventive measures, and identification of emerging threats during basic military training.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15026099
Even in peace time, hundreds to thousands of soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen and guardsmen are injured yearly. Many are killed. It is one of the most demanding and dangerous peacetime professions. It requires a level of fitness that can expose underlying or hidden health conditions that may be life threatening. Sad to hear any service connected death. Especially so for a new recruit.
Prayers for her family.
The hardest thing we did was march. We marched a great deal. I suppose boot camp could have changed since then. Nevertheless, I suspect there was an underlying condition here. It's still a tragedy.
My grand daughter went through Navy boot camp recently and she said it wasn’t that bad but she was fit when she went. She said most of them were in terrible shape and even the ones that are slender and look healthy are really out of shape to do anything.
Of course I have no idea what happened to those in the article but many young people today are not as active as we all were when we grew up.
Maybe girls shouldn’t be allowed in the general enlistment...
It is sad, but thousands and thousand of people go through boot camp without dying. This is getting blown way out of proportion. The girl is from my hometown. This is what she may have died of:
Unfortunately, because many people with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy don’t realize they have it, there are instances where the first sign of a problem is sudden cardiac death. These cases can happen in seemingly healthy young people, including high school athletes and other young, active adults. News of these types of deaths generates understandable attention because they’re so unexpected, but parents should be aware these deaths are quite rare.
Nobody counsels these recruits to show up in shape. Could well be the first heavy physical exertion in a lifetime, what with TV, video games, faces buried in phones...
Navy boot camp is not that strenuous compared to Marines and Army. Only the Air Force is less physical (don’t know about Coast Guard). Additionally they were at Great Lakes Naval Training Center between Milwaukee and Chicago in April. That’s a very good time to be there. I started on August 4th. It was very hot. The women used to be in Orlando.
I have little doubt that there was an underlying condition in these cases.