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."

[Myrddin]

Ricin ingested via food or water is a possible candidate as well.

[genefromjersey]

Thanks ! No, I'm not on that list, but I do monitor a WHO-related site.

[Eagle Eye]

Not likely. Symptoms don't match and the numbers are too low.

Aside from that, the troops guard their food and water very well.

[firewalk]

Thanks for the ping

[SpeakLittle_ThinkMuch]

Tuesdays update. Doesn't appear anything is new...

July 29, 2003

Family still wants to know why soldier died
Long talk with Army official falls short, Neusches say.


Neusche


By Eric Eckert
News-Leader

An hourlong phone call Monday afternoon with the U.S. Army Surgeon General's Office brought little closure to the parents of fallen soldier Spc. Joshua Neusche.
Mark and Cynthia Neusche said they spoke with Col. Robert DeFraites, the office's senior preventive-medicine specialist. Throughout the conversation, the couple hoped to learn what exactly killed their oldest boy on July 12.

That answer never came.

"We didn't find out as much as we'd like to," Mark Neusche said after the teleconference at Fort Leonard Wood. "We learned a lot of stuff is still pending."

Josh Neusche — a Missouri National Guardsman with the 203rd Engineer Battalion — died in a German hospital after falling into a coma about 12 days earlier. The casualty report his parents received in the mail Monday says the 20-year-old college freshman succumbed to complications due to respiratory failure.

The colonel told the Neusches tissue samples taken from their son's liver, kidneys and lungs were sent for testing to the pathology lab at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. Mark Neusche said DeFraites advised it would take several weeks to learn of the test results.

Spc. Neusche, of Montreal, Mo., was among 12 soldiers in the Middle East who suffered pneumonia so severe they were placed on respirators, DeFraites said. All but one were treated at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany. Neusche and another unnamed soldier died after contracting the illness.

DeFraites told the News-Leader last week that two epidemiology teams had been deployed — one to Landstuhl, the other to undisclosed areas of Iraq — to study the cause of the pneumonia outbreak, which has afflicted dozens of troops since March 1.

"I think it's really positive that they're sending the crews," Mark Neusche said. "I'd like to get results a lot faster than what he told us, but apparently that's not possible. With them being overseas, it takes time."

The Neusches said Josh, a heavy-equipment operator, fell ill on June 30 after returning to his camp in Baghdad. He had just completed a mission that began four days earlier.

Cynthia Neusche said she's learned through firsthand accounts that Josh was complaining of a sore throat and had trouble breathing after returning to Baghdad. She said Josh talked with some friends before going to his tent to write letters — one to his parents, the other to his girlfriend, Layne Clark.

That same night, Josh apparently left his tent and went to the camp's medical tent, where he fell into a coma, DeFraites told the Neusches.

The Neusches were told of their son's condition July 2. And after scrambling to acquire passports — an effort expedited by U.S. Rep. Ike Skelton's office — the couple flew to Landstuhl to be with Josh one day before he died.

"I don't see no reason for pneumonia to drop someone as healthy as Josh was," Mark Neusche said Monday, five days after burying his son.

Doctors in Landstuhl told the Neusches their son's organs had stopped functioning and he'd have to be transferred to a hospital in Hamburg, where he would be placed on dialysis. The soldier was dead by the time he arrived in Hamburg.

DeFraites said pneumonia can be brought on by bacteria and viruses, as well as fungus, parasites and noninfectious causes. Preliminary tests show the condition was not communicable, and investigators have ruled out severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS.

In an earlier interview, DeFraites said the epidemiologist team will look at the victims' personal histories for smoking and medical ailments.

Cynthia Neusche said DeFraites asked her and her husband about Josh's habits. "He didn't smoke," she said. "He never had a broken bone. He was always healthy."

She did say, however, Josh was allergic to poison ivy. "That was about it."

While they'd like to know more, the Neusches said they're satisfied right now with the government's initiative.

"I don't see any other way to fight it," Mark Neusche said. "Right at the moment, I don't think they know anything."

Added his wife: "I know it all takes time. As long as they keep at it, I'll be satisfied."

[Judith Anne]

Thanks for posting.

[Lucy Lake]

Thanks for the ping.

[Domestic Church]

This doesn't sound like radiation poisioning.

[eyespysomething]

Check this out:
http://www.expatica.com/index.asp?HRSite=

Virus spreads through Dutch troops

29 July 2003
AMSTERDAM — Dozens of peacekeeping Dutch soldiers stationed in the south of Iraq have caught a virus and the Defence Ministry is concerned that the number could increase to about a hundred.

There are 700 Dutch soldiers stationed in the war-torn Islamic country as part of the British-led stabilisation force. The troops are patrolling the thinly populated, hot and sandy desert province of al-Muthanna that borders Saudi Arabia.

A spokesman for the Marines said the troops were infected with the virus. He confirmed that military staff had anticipated the soldiers might catch a virus.

"Coalition allies in Iraq have also had to contend with similar health problems," news service Nu.nl quoted him saying on Tuesday.

The vulnerability of soldiers to viruses in the Middle Eastern country is due in part to the extreme heat, the different life style encountered, new foods and a higher concentration of viruses in the air. The virus causes vomiting and diarrhoea.

The Dutch Cabinet decided in June to dispatch 1,100 troops to the SFIR stabilisation force in Iraq to help secure law and order in the region. The heart of the Dutch contingent will be made up of a battalion of 650 marines, supported by a company of the engineering corps, a field hospital, military police and three Chinook transport helicopters and armoured transports.

A military advisor warned the Parliament before it backed the cabinet's decision in June that troops should remain vigilant against renegade Iraqis regrouping in the province after carrying out attacks against Western soldiers.

The troops are expected to remain in Iraq for six months and should any hostilities occur, the sufficiently armed and larger British force has guaranteed to offer the Dutch military support.

[Domestic Church]

"... a higher concentration of viruses in the air..."

Anyone care to read between the lines on this odd phrase?

When is the normal flu season for Iraq?

[SpeakLittle_ThinkMuch]

Could be a link here. I'll just keep watching to see if anything else shows up. Good find!

[Calpernia]

Mind adding Gene to your ping list? Gene, flutters has a great link list too. Flutters, can you send Gene the link?

[flutters]

Hi Calpernia. I added Gene to the ping list. If anyone else would like on or off this list please let me know.

Here is the link to the SARS Threads:

http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/902131/posts?page=1,50

[SpeakLittle_ThinkMuch]

Looks like the story made Drudge....here's his link...

7 more cases of mystery illness

Military trying to identify malady that killed lake area soldier

By Marsha Paxson

Lake Sun

LAKE OF THE OZARKS -- Seven more soldiers in Iraq have contracted the same puzzling illness that has killed two soldiers, including one from the lake area.

The latest cases bring the number of affected troops to 19. All have been evacuated to the same Landstuhl, Germany, hospital where Spec. Josh Neusche, 20, of Montreal was treated before he died July 12.

It is believed Neusche contracted the illness, first thought to be pneumonia, while conducting cleanup operations with the 203rd Engineer Battalion in Baghdad.

"The Army Surgeon General confirmed that three or four of the soldier's in Josh's unit are among those who got sick," Sen. Ike Skelton told the Lake Sun Tuesday. "I know Josh was stationed in Baghdad when he got sick but I still do not know what unit the second soldier (who died of the mysterious illness) was in, what his job was or where he was working when he became ill."

Skelton said he had not yet been told which units the sick soldiers were attached to or where they might have been before they fell ill. U.S. Army Surgeon General Lt. Gen. James Peake has ordered teams of medical experts and epidemiology specialists to retrace the soldiers' steps from the second they set foot in the Middle East.

"They are investigating everything it could possibly be," Skelton said. "I'm confident that with medical science and the technological advances we've made, we will get some positive answers."

Skelton, who serves as the ranking Democrat of the House Armed Services Committee, contacted top officials with the Department of the Army when he first learned of Neusche's case in late June.

Neusche's family could not afford to make the trip to Germany and was told he was in a coma, dying of a flu-like ailment.

Fellow soldiers chipped in for airfare and Skelton expedited their passports and paperwork to get them to Germany in time.

When Neusche's parents arrived in Germany on July 9, the illness had already begun ravaging his muscles, liver and kidneys. Neusche died in an ambulance on the way to another hospital for dialysis.

Cindi and Mark Neusche said that as they watched their son's health get worse, they noticed other soldiers were beginning to fill nearby hospital rooms.

Acute respiratory distress syndrome, which mimics some of the symptoms exhibited by the ailing soldiers usually targets the lungs and is not known to break down other organs.

Skelton said the surgeon general has completely ruled out severe acute respiratory distress syndrome, also known as SARS, as the cause.

"For some reason doctors have been able to eliminate SARS as a possible explanation for the soldier's deaths and sickness."

A month long study by doctors and scientists is expected to include a review of the soldiers' medical records and testing on blood and tissue samples in Germany. A separate team will conduct soil, water and air tests in Iraq and Kuwait to determine if a common denominator exists between the suspect cases.

Skelton says he's hanging on to hope for definitive answers -- and soon.

"The deaths of our American soldiers is a tragedy to start with," Skelton said. "They were just doing their duty to their country and to die of a unknown cause just makes it worse.

"It's heart-wrenching that two families have already buried their loved ones, not knowing what killed them. Closure is something we cannot give them until we get answers."

[TBall]

Bump to your post

[Domestic Church]

"...the surgeon general has completely ruled out severe acute respiratory distress syndrome, also known as SARS, as the cause."

When did SARS become SARDS?

[Judith Anne]

Yeah, somebody was asleep at the switdch. ;-D

The "distress" word is redundant, imho.

[revolted]

Botulism

or

note "had" a relationship with his girlfriend

overdose of acetaminophen maybe

[OXENinFLA]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/955712/posts

Follow up 7-29.

[SpeakLittle_ThinkMuch]

Thanks