"Momma Medic" saved by PTSD service dog

Options expand for wounded as more heal PTSD with alternative treatments
By MATTHEW M. BURKE
Stars and Stripes
Published: June 9, 2012

Army Sgt. Angel Morrow watched as countless Marines and soldiers she knew were killed or maimed by improvised explosive devices in Afghanistan.

The woman they called “Momma Medic,” the medical readiness noncommissioned officer in charge of her Oregon National Guard unit, returned to the United States in 2010 and processed 650 soldiers, about 70 of which had “severe issues” from the deployment.

When one of her soldiers shot and killed himself outside her office, she started to break.

“I did everything I could for him,” she said.

She became reclusive, showing signs of post-traumatic stress disorder: anxiety, anger, severe depression. She thought she was “going crazy” and took a medical leave of absence. A few months later, she resigned her active-duty position.

Veterans Affairs doctors prescribed her several different drugs that didn’t help. The two civilian counselors she saw did not understand military life.

Morrow might have become a suicide statistic — one of the 18 veterans who kill themselves every day on average — had she not found Bianca, a 70-pound pit bull.
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