'When it comes to that night in November, I kind of get a horrible feeling inside,' she explained. Terri said she would never truly know what happened on the night of the fire as she was too young to remember.īut she admits that she 'doesn't know any different' about her physical appearance. The pair had an emotional reunion when she was a teenager. Her mother was left wracked by guilt and suicidal over the fire and did not see her for ten years. Terri was brought up by her factory worker father Paul Calvesbert who had split up from her mother two months before the fire. She added: 'I've always wanted to get married but I never thought this would happen at my age, especially to me' (pictured, with Richard) Now I don't do any of that.Terri said she is going to be nervous on the day but is excited to be with her friends and family. "Dirt bike riding, mountain bike riding, hiking with the family. Regardless of whether he gets benefits, Jentik said that his health will never be the same. "And when you think that the military is willing to expose men and women - our young sons, and daughters, and brothers, and sisters - to burn pits, simply because they say it is inconvenient and not cost-effective for them. A Department of Defense spokeswoman added that "We are concerned that toxins from burn pit emissions may pose health risks, and we are assessing potential long-term impacts."Ī skeptical Ruiz is worried that newly deployed soldiers are still at risk. The Command said that 13 burn pits are currently burning non-hazardous waste, but they also said that could change at any time if battlefield conditions change. Central Command reported nine burn pits creating toxic smoke. "We cannot let burn pit exposure veterans be the 'Vietnam veterans exposed to Agent Orange' of our generation.
His worry, he said, is that the veterans will die before they receive their benefits. " give them the care that they need - and if they don't, then they should be held accountable." Do what's right for our veterans," Ruiz said. They fought the VA for benefits in a battle that took decades to win. Some veterans who were exposed to the powerful herbicide, which was sprayed widely to kill jungle foliage, got sick years later. Ruiz sees a parallel in American history: the use of Agent Orange in the Vietnam War. That should be our common sense approach when you put veterans in the center of the VA system." "When people are exposed to an illness, and they come in dying on a gurney in the emergency department, you don't have to wait for that pristine science to determine that this patient is sick, and they're dying, and you need to act on it and take care of the veteran - the patient. "There is enough! There is enough to act on it," Ruiz said.
But he didn't stop there: a Harvard-trained emergency room doctor, Ruiz has launched a legislative blitz to get sick veterans benefits without waiting for more years of studies. Her congressman, Raul Ruiz from California, got her family survivor benefits. One of the denied VA claims came from Jennifer Kepner, who believed her fatal pancreatic cancer was caused by burn pit exposure in Iraq. But of the 12,000 claims filed to the VA connected to burn pits, only about 2,500 have been accepted – and a victims' lawsuit against contractors who oversaw some of the pits was rejected by the Supreme Court. The Veterans Administration has established a voluntary burn pit registry, and more than 180,000 people have signed up. Rose said that there are many other potential lung hazards, including desert dust, intense sandstorms, and "a huge amount" of diesel exhaust. "They weren't there before, and they are clearly there after people have returned from these arid and extreme environments."īut it's not easy to identify the burn pits as the culprit. "We have described a spectrum of diseases that are related to deployment," she said. Jentik said the pits smelled acrid, like "when you burn plastic." He said, "you just constantly saw the smoke or you smelled it, pretty much everyday, all day."ĭr. But he's also part of a much larger group: he was one of thousands of men and women who served in Iraq and Afghanistan who may be sick or dying because they inhaled smoke from massive burn pits next to their bases. Jentik is part of a lung study at the National Jewish hospital in Denver. At some of the military bases throughout those regions, waste materials were disposed of in so-called "burn pits." Breathing fumes from the burn pit fires appears to have damaged the health of countless veterans.Īrmy veteran Dan Jentik struggles with what most don't even think about: taking a breath. Many returned with visible scars of war – but for some, their injury is hidden. Over 1.5 million American troops were deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan between 20. How "burn pits" in Iraq and Afghanistan may have put veterans at risk 07:26
0 kommentar(er)
