The Blame Game

The Army Times posted a follow-up on the story of SPC Kevin Shumaker today that makes for some very interesting reading – both the actual story and the comments from other soldiers below the story.

For those of you who are not already familiar with Shumaker’s story, here is a quick recap: Shumaker joined the Army in 2009 and eventually went on to serve in Afghanistan as a cook at COP Chamkani. While there, he was caring for a stray dog that the unit had adopted as a mascot. He was bitten by another stray dog while attempting to break up a fight between the two dogs (the mascot and the other dog), and contracted rabies. He never did seek any medical attention, nor did he inform his chain of command about the bite – though he apparently mentioned it “to a visiting veterinarian” and “on a post-deployment health survey.” After Shumaker returned from Afghanistan, he was posted to Fort Drum, NY. It was there that he first began showing symptoms and went to the hospital for arm pain, which was treated symptomatically as tendonitis. On August 19, he collapsed and was taken to the hospital again where doctors recognized symptoms of rabies and had him hospitalized and started on an experimental treatment for the disease. However, during treatment, he suffered from bleeding in the brain and died on August 31.

So much for the recap. After this originally hit the news, Shumaker’s family wanted the case investigated – which the Army did. Now the results of the investigation are out and Shumaker’s family are unhappy because “nobody is getting punished.” Says his mother,

“If you ask me as a mom what I would like to see, it’s accountability for the people who were neglectful, who caused Kevin’s death,” she said. “You can’t take Kev away from me and allow the chain of command, who was responsible for Kevin, to go on and live happily; nothing happens to them.”

…

Being that this happened on Fort Drum, it happened sort of close to home, and the local casualty affairs office has received no end of calls and emails with complaints about how this case was handled and requests for more information to be released, even though they had really very little to do with any of it. Especially considering that Shumaker had basically just arrived and in-processed on Fort Drum after coming from Germany. Fort Drum would have been the last place to have been aware of anything that went on prior, in Afghanistan.

Shumaker was lucky that the day he collapsed, he was taken to Local Small Hospital, which is the same hospital I go to a lot as an EMT with patients both from the local area and from the base. There, he was seen by Dr. J – identified in some of the news reports as “a former military doctor.” – who is possibly the very best person in whose care he could have wound up because Dr. J has the experience to have recognized the symptoms as rabies and immediately had Shumaker transferred to Very Large City where, I am sure, he was getting the best possible care at the university hospital.

Unfortunately, this did not save his life because it was too little, too late, but I thought it would be important to point out that neither Fort Drum nor the local medical facilities have any part in Shumaker’s death, nor that they deserve any blame. So if you’re ferreting for more information or want to point the finger of blame, you may as well point it elsewhere.

Which brings us to a pretty good question … where should the finger of blame be pointed?

Obviously, Shumaker’s parents believe that his entire chain of command should carry the blame and be punished for … well … for what, actually? Obviously, the parents do believe that the chain of command is responsible for their son’s death, but are they, really?

Let’s face it – wherever soldiers go they will adopt cats and dogs as pets because, well, if you’ve got animals at home, that’s something you tend to kind of miss when you’re in a combat zone. And being that you can’t cuddle with your wife or girlfriend and you can’t just pick up the phone and call or send a text message anytime you want, having a little furry critter staring up at you in adoration when you bring it some scraps, or curled up on your chest when you go to bed, makes a pretty big difference. If it didn’t, you wouldn’t have so many soldiers adopting pets. And you wouldn’t have agencies such as the SPCA International helping soldiers bringing those pets stateside at the end of the deployment.

It this against regulations? Sure it is – but that’s one of those rules where everyone tends to turn two blind eyes because they understand that while there are risks to keeping animals, the impact it has on the morale and well-being of the troops does outweigh the risks.

And yes, it does outweigh the risks. We have been at war for 10 years and 131 days (according to Wikipedia) as I write this blog post. We’ve had hundreds of thousands of soldiers deployed overseas. And we’ve had one fatality from rabies. By comparison, one or two people die annually of rabies in the United States, usually after being bitten by a rabid bat.

I understand why the parents want to blame the military for their son’s death.

They want to blame the military and they want to see people lose their jobs and careers because they’ve lost someone very dear to them and they can’t stand the thought that they may need to face tomorrow having to admit to themselves that the primary person who needs to carry blame was Kevin himself. Because he did get involved with the pets on base. Because he decided to get into a dog fight to break it up. Because he did not report the bite and he did not seek medical attention. Heck, even because he lied to his parents, telling them he had sought help and was receiving treatment.

Says the article,

After he was bitten, Shumaker told his parents by phone and online messages that he had been given a partial sequence of rabies shots that was stopped because the medication was expired. He also told them he was ordered to shoot the dog and bring it in for rabies testing.

It appears this may not have been true. The investigation found no evidence that Shumaker sought or received the care he described to his parents, that he was ordered to shoot a dog or that one was tested for rabies.

A blood test after his condition was detected found no rabies antibodies in his system, and there was no human rabies vaccine available or called forward to COP Chamkani, the report states.

His stepfather conceded that Shumaker, while an honest person, may have told them a “story” to keep them from worrying. “I personally think he was trying to make us feel better,” David Taylor said.

On that note, I have to admit that I’m having a hard time putting some pieces of information in this article together in a way that makes sense.

On one hand, Shumaker obviously knew a thing or two about animals, having grown up in a family that owned dogs and having volunteered his time at a shelter together with his mother prior to joining the Army. You’d think anyone who’s spend any time working with animals would know that you don’t try to break up a dog fight because it very likely means you will be bitten.

But the thing that bothers me most is this -

By some accounts given to investigators, Shumaker had close contact with the dogs on the post, feeding, petting and playing with them. He sought treatment in July for a scratch from either a bite or a fall after he was attacked by a dog, the investigation said.

I think this does raise some eyebrows.

Here’s someone who is bitten (or otherwise injured) by a dog and he goes and seeks treatment. Then, a few months later, he is bitten by another dog and he doesn’t seek treatment – he doesn’t even mention it. Which makes me wonder why. I wonder whether he was, in fact, told to keep away from the dogs on base and to stop feeding them and paying them any attention. And then, bitten again, he was worried he’d get in trouble, so he didn’t seek any medical attention. Of course, this is just speculation, but I’m having a hard time understanding why he wouldn’t seek medical attention the second time as well if there’d not been something that would have made him feel like he probably shouldn’t.

Of course, this also brings up the question of whether the times he supposedly told people about the bite – the time he spoke to a visiting veterinarian and the time he wrote it on a post-deployment health survey – he was talking about the first bite, the one he sought medical attention for, or the second bite, the one that killed him.

Those questions bug me about this case.

Of course, there’s also the little, insignificant thing of personal responsibility. This isn’t a child we’re talking about but a grown man, a 24-year-old soldier. And while his chain of command may have turned a blind eye to the fact that he was caring for a stray dog on the base, something that violated regulations, the fact remains that he chose to take care of this stray animal, to feed it, to play with it, to take the risks of being around stray, unvaccinated dogs. This was his choice.

He also made the choice not to report the dog bite – for whatever reason. He didn’t go to the medics and say, “I’ve been bitten by a dog and I’m worried I might catch rabies.” Or even to say, “I’ve been bitten by a dog.” if he didn’t realize he should be worried about rabies.

But I don’t think his parents have looked at it from the point-of-view of personal responsibility. To them, it’s the Army’s fault. Partially because the chain-of-command didn’t stop the soldiers from keeping dogs, even though the base did have a “dog eradication” program in place. And partially due to a lack of educating the soldiers themselves. Says his stepfather, “They had not educated (…) any of the soldiers themselves as to the subsequent results of being bitten by a dog.” Really? Don’t parents and schools teach children not to get bitten by wild or stray animals anymore? I was taught this as a child. It’s certainly not the military’s responsibility to make up for educational shortcomings in the school system or the parental home. At least not last I checked.

Of course, I think his parents statements show how out of touch they really are when it comes to the military. Says his mother, “More recently he aspired to earn a Ranger tab, apply to intelligence school and put his expertise with computers to work for the Army.” Right. I’d like to be a special forces operator, myself. Or maybe take my artistic talents and become an illustrator for the Army. And I’m pretty handy with computers, so maybe they need someone to work Photoshop. Doesn’t change the fact that I’m not qualified for half of those. Also doesn’t change the fact that our future Ranger, intelligence-school-computer-expert was actually a cook for an MP unit.

And all the finger-pointing at the Army and the chain of command doesn’t change the fact that a young solider chose to break up a dog fight and then chose not to report the bite or seek the medical attention which could have saved his life.

I understand the parents’ grief, but they’re looking to put the blame in all the wrong places.