China post quake leaves PTSD epidemic

Chinese Army Hit With PTSD Epidemic
June 18, 2008: In the wake of the relief efforts for the recent earthquakes in China, army doctors find themselves faced with thousands of soldiers exhibiting strange symptoms. These include severe fatigue, shortness of breath, palpitations, headaches, excessive sweating, dizziness, disturbed sleep, fainting and flashbacks to traumatic situations encountered during the weeks of working in the earthquake zone (where nearly 100,000 people died). A few of the army doctors recognized the symptoms as PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder). It's been three decades since Chinese soldiers experienced combat, and there are only stories left of its after-effects. Some of the oldest NCOs and officers vaguely remember, when they first entered military service, hearing about veterans of the 1979 battles on the Vietnamese border, suffering from combat fatigue.


PTSD is not unusual for relief workers at the site of particularly horrendous disasters. The recent earthquakes in central China were the kind of disaster that only occurs every generation or two.
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