Army probe finds failures in care at Fort Knox unit

LEFT BEHIND: Melissa Cassidy (left) and her mother-in-law, Kay McMullen, want changes in how wounded soldiers are cared for so Sgt. Gerald Cassidy's death while in the Army's care will not be in vain. Abbey, 5, and Isaac, 3, also survive their father, who was 31.

SPECIAL REPORT
A soldier's death, a family's fight
Army probe finds failures in care at Fort Knox unit
By Maureen Groppe
Star Washington Bureau
FORT KNOX, KY. -- When Sgt. Gerald Cassidy died alone from a prescription drug overdose at the Army's Warrior Transition Unit here, at a facility set up expressly to help wounded soldiers, he had more than 600 prescription pills in his room.

His body was found Sept. 21 in a chair in his room, after he had missed required morning and afternoon check-in for three days.

A sergeant was supposed to have taken attendance and tracked down anyone not present.

Instead, the sergeant ignored Cassidy's absence the first afternoon, missed the next daily check-in with car trouble and the following day marked Cassidy present even though he wasn't.

Cassidy was found dead more than eight hours after his wife, Melissa, began calling Fort Knox in an escalating panic on Sept. 21.

Finally, after she called at 6 p.m. and told a sergeant that she was getting ready to drive down from Westfield to look for her husband herself, the sergeant checked Cassidy's room.

Two hours later, Melissa was told over the telephone that her husband had been found dead in his small room. Four hours after that, about midnight, an Army chaplain arrived at Melissa's home.

The Army pronounced Cassidy's death an accidental overdose. The 31-year-old soldier took too many prescription drugs that, in combination, suppressed his respiratory system. In his system were methadone, the antidepressant citalopram, multiple opiates, a tranquilizer and a hypertension drug.

These and other details about how Cassidy lived his last few days and how he died were revealed recently by his wife and mother in an interview with The Indianapolis Star.

Cassidy's family also provided to The Star key documents from the Army's investigation of his death that had not previously been released and shared some notes Cassidy wrote at Fort Knox about his anxiety over loud noises and lack of sleep and his concern for the impact of his illness on his family.

The family says it is speaking out in hopes that greater public awareness will help other soldiers get better treatment.

The family found an ally in Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh, who is calling for numerous changes in the way the military handles mental health services for wounded soldiers.

"The pain is never going to go away," said Cassidy's mother, Kay McMullen, Carmel. "You've got to do something then to change the outcome for other people."
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