From the battlefield to home, coping with PTSD

From the battlefield to home, coping with PTSD
Jul. 15, 2012
Written by
Brad Zinn

STAUNTON — It was during his initial combat tour in Iraq in 2003 that Daniel Fahey first heard the term "corpsman up!" yelled in earnest.

The cry, issued when a Marine is fallen, came after four Marines on cots had a fuel tanker collapse on top of them. Fahey, a Fleet Marine Force hospital corpsman with the U.S Navy, rushed to the scene to provide aid. The first body he spotted was face down, half-exposed and crushed by the tanker.

"His liver was lying in the sand, to his right," said Fahey in a thick Boston accent.

It would be Fahey's first combat experience dealing with death. But as a medic, also known as a "Doc," it certainly wouldn't be his last.

Fahey, now 43, would do two tours in Iraq, the second in 2005, and a third tour in 2009 in Afghanistan. He saw death, he saw combat, and then he saw his life as a civilian crumble around him.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, a mental health condition not uncommon in soldiers, was to blame.

Fahey, who spent two months at a Florida facility to deal with his PTSD, along with outpatient treatment, is now an advocate for those suffering from the disorder.
read more here