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Some of the other 26 San Diego County cases in this report may be under investigation right now, according to a congressional staffer familiar with the process.Īnother San Diego suicide that already has spurred change is that of 37-year-old Air Force veteran Rudy Hewitt. The VA inspector general called for policy change at the national and local levels. The investigation found no evidence that Sears was offered follow-on care for the brain injury diagnosis. Studies show that chronic pain elevates risk of suicide, as does traumatic brain injury – which Sears was diagnosed with by a VA neurologist who conducted a disability exam. The case that sparked this special project by The San Diego Union-Tribune was the October 2014 suicide of 35-year-old Marine veteran Jeremy Sears.Ī report issued last month by the VA inspector general said that VA doctors failed him by continuing to refill prescriptions for hydrocodone – generic for the narcotic painkiller Vicodin – for 22 months without requiring Sears to come in for a face-to-face meeting. “I wish I would have been there every time with him at the VA - every visit, with everybody he met.” And I’m sure they were, it’s just that I think we needed to be more proactive on the medications, as a parent, speaking out,” said Diana Cruz, whose 32-year-old son, Mike, was an Air Force veteran. “Because he had so many doctors and social workers and counselors who were constantly working with him, I thought they were really on it. Loved ones inevitably have regrets, and even guilt, after a suicide.īut several of these families shared the same wish: That they had gotten more involved, instead of expecting the veteran to be able to navigate the system, or trusting the system to work. (Hayne Palmour IV / San Diego Union-Tribune) The Pentagon has also stepped up prevention programs after a spike in suicides among active-duty troops in the mid 2000s. Spurred by public outrage over young troops surviving combat only to die by their own hand back home, Congress last year attacked the problem with new legislation and funding for the VA.
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There’s no shortage of news about the suicide rate among American military veterans - estimated at 22 per day among vets of all ages. He made a decision in that moment that was a very bad decision.” “He was in pain that he didn’t feel would ever stop. My husband wasn’t crazy,” said Erin Murzyn, widow of a 44-year-old retired Marine from Alpine who killed himself less than two years after leaving uniform. “I used to think that people who died by suicide were crazy. In 2014, news broke that officials at some VA hospitals were falsifying wait times for medical care to boost their performance bonuses.Ĭloser to home, a recent VA inspector general report determined that San Diego VA doctors botched care of a 35-year-old former Camp Pendleton Marine who shot himself in October 2014.įamily members said they are speaking out to help other veterans facing the same set of challenges. In recent years, some veterans waited up to two years for disability benefits. These stories of San Diego County veterans in despair follow investigations that have confirmed all is not right with the VA nationally. The headstone of Justin Price, an Iraq Army veteran who died by suicide, at Miramar National Cemetery in San Diego.