Mystery Illness Kills Missouri Soldier

Missouri News-Leader ^ | 7/16/03 | Eric Eckert

[SpeakLittle_ThinkMuch]

Mystery illness kills Missouri soldier
Josh Neusche died Saturday; his family waits for answers.
By Eric Eckert
News-Leader Staff

July 16, 2003

 

Montreal, Mo. — Seventeen-year-old Jacob Neusche spent Tuesday morning packing up his big brother's belongings — books, a high school letterman's jacket and a Class A uniform.  "That's what Josh will be buried in," the teenager said, referring to the uniform.

 

Missouri National Guard Spc. Josh Neusche, 20, died Saturday at the Homburg Hospital in Germany from a mysterious illness. A member of the 203rd Engineer Battalion, he is the only Missouri National Guardsman on the Department of Defense's casualty list.

 

Family and friends are awaiting the soldier's body, scheduled to arrive Thursday in the United States.

 

They are also waiting for autopsy results, and his parents, Mark and Cindy Neusche, are calling for an investigation.

 

"He's always been healthy," Mark Neusche said. "Hell, he's a cross-country runner. There's no reason for a boy of his health to deteriorate so quickly."

 

Cindy Neusche said her son collapsed July 2 while in Baghdad and was transported to Germany. Doctors there told the family they believed Josh suffered from pneumonia due to fluid that had collected on his lungs. But then his liver, kidneys and muscles started to break down, his mother said.

 

"They were doing some things there, trying to get his kidneys flushed out," she said through tears. "They told us his potassium levels came up so far and he needed to go on dialysis."

 

The Neusches traveled to Germany Friday to be with their son. When they arrived, they found him in a drug-induced coma. The grief-stricken couple weren't able to talk with their boy, but they believe he knew they were there.

 

"In our hearts, we felt he heard us," said Cindy Neusche. "You could tell by the machines he was on. His heart rate got faster when we talked to him."

 

Josh Neusche died the next day.

 

Doctors and family members are still befuddled by the strange illness. There's got to be an explanation, Mark Neusche said. He prays the hospital's autopsy will reveal the cause.

 

"I know the doctor over in Germany said he got into some type of toxin," Mark Neusche said. "Several soldiers were in similar conditions while we were there."

 

So far there has been no hint of an official inquiry.

 

"That's not under investigation," said U.S. Army Spokesman, Lt. Col. Jeff Keane, from Virginia.

 

"To my knowledge, we've not been asked to do that (investigate)," added Whitney Frost, a spokeswoman for U.S. Rep. Ike Skelton.

 

Meanwhile, friends and family have been reminiscing about their loved one.

 

"I lost the person I looked up to the most," Jacob Neusche said of his brother. "I guess now the role I'll have to step into is caring for my mother and dad. My brother always did that."

 

Friends remembered how Josh loved to play his trombone, his reign as Camdenton High School's 2002 prom king and his penchant for mathematics.

 

"He was a tutor for little kids," said friend Danny Pacholski. "The guy was a genius at math. ... It's really heartbreaking that this happened. We were always supposed to grow up with each other."

 

Josh's high school sweetheart, Krissy Lewis, said he lived his 20 years to the fullest. The couple broke up after high school, but stayed close friends.

 

"He was the most outgoing person I'd ever met," Lewis said, adding that friends have been consoling each other since they learned of the death. "One moment, I'm OK and then it hits me that I've lost the first love of my life."

 

Josh joined the National Guard in high school. When he was activated in March, the young man was enrolled at Southwest Missouri State University as a freshman.

 

He was taking general-education courses and had been dating fellow student Layne Clark for eight months. Clark, 19, said she and Josh talked many times about getting married.

 

"We met at college through a friend of ours," Clark said Tuesday. "We loved to go dancing. We saw a lot of movies and we enjoyed just being together — doing nothing."

 

Clark said the young soldier believed in his mission.

 

"He was so proud to serve his country. He thought this was the right thing to do and he wanted to do it. He was the most courageous man I'd ever known."

 

On Sunday — the day after learning of Josh's death — Clark received a two-page letter from her boyfriend; it was postmarked June 30.

 

"He just told me that everything was going all right and he'd be home soon."

[SpeakLittle_ThinkMuch]

Has anyone heard any follow up on this?

[Humidston]

Verrry strange....

[SpeakLittle_ThinkMuch]

and it's bringing out the goofy ones...

Found this one at Arabia.com:

US soldiers deployed around Baghdad airport started showing symptoms of mysterious fever, itching, scars and dark brown spots on the skin, the source, who refused to be named, said in statements published Thursday, July 17, by the Saudi Al-Watan newspaper.

He asserted that three soldiers who suffered these symptoms did not respond to medical treatment in Iraqi hospitals and were flown to Washington for medication...

US officials did not come up with an explanation for the symptoms, which NATO experts tend to believe result from direct exposure to powerful nuclear radiations of the sophisticated B-2 bombs used in the war on Iraq, particularly in striking Iraqi Republican Guards forces who deployed to defend the vicinity of Baghdad airport.

DAMN!!! We nuked 'em and I didn't even know it!

[auggy]

"I know the doctor over in Germany said he got into some type of toxin," Mark Neusche said. "Several soldiers were in similar conditions while we were there."

It couldn't be WMD's. Saddam doesn't have any.(sarcasm)

Wonder what it could be?

[SpeakLittle_ThinkMuch]

Seems he wasn't the only one. Just curious if there are any other publications talking about this. The original article was the 16th., here's today's follow-up...

July 26, 2003

Experts to investigate Ozarks soldier's death
Family hopes answers will protect other soldiers

By Eric Eckert, Copyright ? 2003
News-Leader Staff

The U.S. government is investigating whether the death of a Missouri National Guardsman is related to 11 other incidents of severe pneumonia among soldiers stationed in the Middle East.
The U.S. Army Surgeon General's Office confirmed Friday two teams of epidemiology experts will investigate the 12 cases, two of which were fatal. National Guard Spc. Joshua Neusche, 20, of Montreal, Mo., was one of the two troops who died.

Deploying such teams is rare, said Col. Robert DeFraites, the surgeon general's senior preventative-medicine physician. "This only happens one or two times every year."

A two-person team has already been sent to the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, where Neusche was treated before his death on July 12. An additional six-person team is gearing up to fly to undisclosed areas of Iraq, where other soldiers began suffering from the illness.

The teams will study everything from the soldiers' medical records and tissue samples to soil, water and air samples, DeFraites said.

"Nothing's going to be ruled out," DeFraites said. "When you go into one of these things, you keep an open mind. ... There's enough concern about these two fatal cases (occurring) in such a short period of time" to warrant the investigation.

The colonel said they've not yet been able to identify a specific bacterium or virus that could have caused such severe cases of pneumonia, but added that 17 soldiers have died from acute respiratory distress syndrome in the past five years.

"It's not entirely unheard of for this to happen," DeFraites said. It is uncommon for pneumonia to cause a breakdown in organs other than the lungs, he said.

Neusche's parents said they were told their son's kidneys, liver and muscles began to deteriorate after he contracted the illness.

"The problem with Josh's death was they didn't know what they were fighting," the soldier's father, Mark Neusche, said Friday. "The doctor said (Josh) got into some type of toxin that began degenerating his muscles."

Without releasing specific numbers, DeFraites said there has been a noticeable increase in pneumonia cases among soldiers since the war in Iraq began.

Under normal circumstances, the colonel said, they expect to see 750 cases worldwide each year among troops.

Considering the number of troops in Iraq, DeFraites said the incidents of pneumonia are exceeding military expectations — 10-20 cases among deployed soldiers each month. Most of the patients have served in Kuwait and Iraq.

Since March 1, the 12 soldiers serving overseas in the Central Command's Area of Responsibility have fallen ill with pneumonia and had to be placed on respirators, the doctor said. Two suffered from a serious form of the illness called pneumococcus pneumonia, but lived.

Many of those soldiers have recovered and are back to work, but questions still linger as to what actually killed Neusche and another unnamed soldier, who died June 17.

Searching for answers

Mark and Cynthia Neusche said they will not accept "pneumonia" or "complications from pneumonia" as the reason for their son's death.

"There has to be more of an explanation than that," his mother said. "Josh was never sick. He was healthy. He ran cross country and track."

The Neusches said Josh — a heavy-equipment operator with the National Guard's 203rd Engineer Battalion — fell ill on June 30 after returning to his camp in Baghdad. He had just completed a mission that started four days earlier. Fellow soldiers found him unresponsive in his tent.

"Before he went to sleep, he told his friend he was tired and had a sore throat," Cynthia Neusche said.

Neusche's parents learned of their son's condition on July 2 and flew to Landstuhl to be with him one day before he died. Doctors there told the couple their son's organs had stopped functioning and he'd have to be transferred to a hospital in Hamburg and placed on dialysis. The soldier was dead by the time he arrived in Hamburg.

Physicians suspected unidentified toxins, Mark Neusche said, and he wants to know more about those substances. He and his wife are scheduled to speak with a medical examiner and a representative with the surgeon general's office Monday at Fort Leonard Wood.

"We're not against the military on this," Cynthia Neusche said. "Josh would just want us to find out what killed him."

Toxic exposure

DeFraites said preliminary tests show the illness is not passed from person to person and is not related to severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS.

Aside from bacteria and viruses, he said, pneumonia can also be brought on by fungus, parasites and noninfectious causes such as exposure to metal dust.

"We don't think depleted uranium has anything to do with it," the colonel said, referring to the element some contend led to soldier illness during the first Gulf War. "There's nothing to suggest depleted uranium would cause pneumonia in the soldiers we've seen."

DeFraites said the 12 soldiers' vaccination records will be studied, as will their personal habits.

"No vaccines cause pneumonia as a side effect," he said. "... You look for clues. Where were they? What are their ages? ... There's probably more to be gained by looking at their environment, blood, lab findings and personal habits."

Infectious agents such as anthrax and smallpox will also be investigated, the doctor said.

Mark Neusche believes his son may have come in contact with some kind of toxin while digging in the Iraqi sand.

"We know there are chemical weapons over there," Mark Neusche said. "Maybe something was leaked into the sand."

Keeping soldiers safe

Regarding deployment of the epidemiology teams — a relatively rare occurrence — DeFraites said units were sent last summer to Fort Bragg in North Carolina to investigate a series of murders and to Fort Leonard Wood when the post experienced a meningitis outbreak in early 2002.

The Iraq team will augment medical military personnel already in that country. It includes an epidemiologist, who will study the patterns of disease and health in the targeted population; an infectious-disease specialist, who will diagnose and prescribe treatment for infections; a microbiologist and laboratory technicians.

The team will stay in Iraq for about a month, DeFraites said.

Stephen Robinson, executive director of the National Gulf War Resource Center — a veterans advocacy group — said he has been watching this trend of strange illnesses closely. He said he's encouraged by the military's latest investigative actions.

"We serve veterans of the last Gulf War, many who have had exposures to elements that made them ill," Robinson said.

"Our interest in this instance is to make sure we hear the truth and we don't let events like this get buried and never resolved. We're out there fighting for these guys who are fighting for us."

In his last letter to his parents, Josh Neusche wrote: "I have millions of stories to tell and I want to tell you in person."

Mark Neusche said he hopes the investigation will provide safety for those soldiers remaining in Iraq so they can live to tell their stories.

"If there's anything we can do to keep those other soldiers from dying, we'll do it," he said. "... Maybe they'll find something and be able to do something about it."

[jocon307]

You know, I had a cousin who was a young woman, she had just gotten married, she must've been about 32 yrs old, and she just got sick, and died. I think they said it was some unusual viral thing, I don't remember. She was only sick for a few days, and before that she had been perfectly healthy.

My poor aunt has had so much hardship in her life, this just seemed too much.

[VOA]

Mystery Illness Kills Missouri Soldier

"Mystery" just means the disease that killed this poor soldier
(and whatever afflicts some of the other deployed) is:

1. Something exotic our military doctors can't recognize
AND/OR
2. A disease course that the doctors haven't gotten a full story on, so it's
a challenge for them to solve
AND/OR
3. A combination of syndromes that makes diagnosis very challenging
AND/OR
4. Represents some sort of diagnostic "perfect storm" combined of 1-3 above,
M.D. ignorance/incompetence, or "the great unknown".

I'm not an M.D., but just say this having lived this long thanks to the help
of very competent (and I might add compassinate and concerned) M.D.s and
having suffered at the hands of a couple M.D.s who I suspect at least
lost their edge a year or two out of med school/residency.

[SpeakLittle_ThinkMuch]

Sad. Guess we never know how close we are to the end. Look at David Bloom of NBC.

[Betty Jo]

Hmmmm,

Iraqi civilians have stolen drums that contained the old yellowcake from the 80's.

They are using then for water.

Does anyone know if this soldier was near that area of the old yellowcake?

What do we do if this GI and the others mentioned are the start of a massive bio attack ala SARS?

[Im Your Huckleberry]

Yikes...

Seems to me that new diseases are just coming out of the woodwork...

[SpeakLittle_ThinkMuch]

Agreed. I'm not ready to screw on my tin-foil hat...but I am rubbing my chin and looking thoughtful. So far this has been very low key considering there have been 2 deaths of young, healthy people.

[Petruchio]

Bio weapon?

[jocon307]

Yes, it's true. When it is your time, you're going. Before it's your time, you're not. This is my conclusion after 45 years of observing the world. For every "pre-mature" death we can find someone who has "cheated death".

[rface]

for later read.....

[JRandomFreeper]

I wonder if it was ethylene glycol poisoning. Might be worth asking his team-mates if he drank any native hooch. Of course, it doesn't take much to put some anti-freeze in the unit's gatorade bag, but lots more would be sick.

/john

[SpeakLittle_ThinkMuch]

That would sure shut down the kidneys.

[Free Vulcan]

bump

[Ben Hecks]

"A disease course that the doctors haven't gotten a full story on, so it's
a challenge for them to solve"

Since this soldier was assigned to an Engineer Battalion, he may have been involved in grading or other earth moving operations that stirred up a lot of dust. If so, he may have contracted something similar to Valley Fever which is sometimes fatal.

[aristeides]

The symptoms don't sound like radiation sickness to me. They remind me of that ship's officer that was initially thought to have anthrax poisoning.

[Marianne]

DU?