Iraq Veteran Discovers What Good Charities Do

Help is on its way for local veteran 
ABC Nerws 13 WHAM
October 22 2015

Home Depot and Patriot Guard Riders, along with several other organizations, will be helping make repairs to the home.

Chili, N.Y. - Efforts are underway to help a local Iraq War veteran who recently had a stroke. As a result of the stroke, Andrew Hand now has trouble speaking, leaving him unable to work.

"It's a day to day lifelong recovery," said his wife Erica, who picked up another job to help support the family and make ends meet. "I think we're adjusting pretty well given the circumstances." With the single income, however, home repairs have had to go on the backburner.
read more here

Veteran's Heartbreaking Suicide Note Left Behind

Veteran's suicide draws attention to Veterans Affairs' use of painkillers
Roanoke News
By Laurence Hammack
Sunday, September 7, 2014

REBECCA BARNETT | The Roanoke Times
Kevin Keller left a suicide note on Marty Austin’s couch before he took his own life in front of the Wytheville Veterans Affairs clinic. The note read “MARTY SORRY I BROKE INTO YOUR HOUSE AND TOOK YOUR GUN TO END THE PAIN! FU VA!! CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE.” Austin said Keller told him repeatedly he was unsatisfied with the care he received at the VA clinic.

BLAND — Nearly everything that Kevin Keller did in his final years bore the mark of constant pain, even the note he left in the end.

His right arm rendered useless by a crippling stroke, Keller used an unsteady left hand to scrawl a brief letter to his best friend.

“MARTY,” it read. “SORRY I BROKE INTO YOUR HOUSE AND TOOK YOUR GUN TO END THE PAIN! FU VA!!! CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE”

By the time Marty Austin found the note in his Bland home late on the night of July 25, Keller had already driven to a Veterans Affairs outpatient clinic in nearby Wytheville, where the U.S. Navy veteran was a patient. Keller parked his red pickup truck at a pharmacy next door, walked to the front of the closed medical office, pounded on the locked doors in a final act of frustration and then used Austin’s 9 mm handgun to shoot himself in the head.

VA officials declined to talk about Keller’s case, but Austin and two other friends of the 52-year-old said he had spoken to them many times about the suffering he endured after doctors and nurses at the VA clinic in Wytheville began to wean him off painkillers.

“The medications were the only thing that was helping him, and when they took that away from him, his life just went downhill,” Austin said.

Keller’s suicide comes as the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs seeks to reduce the amount of opioid painkillers prescribed to patients at veterans hospitals and clinics across the country.
read more here

Protestors put their bodies on the line for wheelchair bound veteran

Protestors lie under vehicle to stop war vet eviction
10 News


SEATTLE (KIRO) -- After a brief reprieve from an eviction, the King County Sheriff's Office removed a disabled Vietnam veteran and his family from their West Seattle home, but this time, activists staged what they called an "eviction blockade" and blocked an ambulance outside the home.

Activists from the organization Standing Against Foreclosure and Eviction stood on the porch and chanted when a deputy arrived to serve the court-ordered eviction notice to Jean and Byron Barton again on Friday.

The couple at first had chained themselves to the bed in another effort to stay in their foreclosed home.

But medics arrived and Byron Barton, who cannot walk and has had a stroke, was put into an ambulance to be transported to the VA hospital, but protesters lined up underneath it, lying down. Seattle police then arrived, along with multiple deputies, who worked to remove protesters from the yard and away from the ambulance. Some were dragged away, screaming.
read more here

Nearly 1 in 4 stroke survivors develop PTSD, study shows

Nearly 1 in 4 stroke survivors develop PTSD, study shows
USA TODAY
Cathy Payne
June 19, 2013

About one in nine stroke or mini-stroke patients have chronic PTSD more than a year later, a new study finds.

A stroke may leave some survivors with post-traumatic stress disorder, which may hinder their recovery, according to a study released today.

About 23% of patients who survive a stroke or transient ischemic attack, a brief interruption of blood flow to the brain, have PTSD symptoms within a year, the study finds. About 11% have chronic PTSD, in which symptoms last three months or longer, more than a year later. The study, led by Columbia University Medical Center researchers, was published online today in the journal PLOS ONE.

"Strokes are among the most terrifying life-threatening events," says lead author Donald Edmondson.
read more here

Stroke kills commander of county SWAT unit

Stroke kills commander of county SWAT unit
Lt. Michael Howe collapsed after leading investigation into murder-suicide
By Jennifer McMenamin Sun reporter
7:42 PM EDT, August 12, 2008
A veteran Baltimore County police officer and the longtime commander of the department's tactical unit died Monday from a stroke he suffered a day earlier after leading the investigation into a murder-suicide in Randallstown.
Lt. Michael Howe spent Sunday morning at the home of a man who called police to say he had killed his wife and was about to shoot himself. There, the 55-year-old commander ordered his officers to enter the house of an armed man, just as he had done hundreds of times before. Officers found two bodies in the basement.
Hours later, Lt. Howe collapsed at his Carroll County home. He died Monday afternoon at the Johns Hopkins Hospital of an apparent massive stroke, police said Tuesday.
"He was a shining example of the best in American policing," said Baltimore County Police Chief James W. Johnson. "It is a significant loss for this agency."
go here for more of this


http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/baltimore_county/bal-howe0812,0,3277150.story


Lieutenant Howe died Monday of a stroke he suffered a day earlier after leading an investigation into a murder-suicide in Randallstown.
Related links
Lt. Michael Howe
He is receiving full departmental honors.


Balto. Co. police ID man who allegedly killed wife, himself
By Kevin Rector Sun reporter
11:44 AM EDT, August 11, 2008
Baltimore County police today identified Palmer Corbin White, 71, as the man who allegedly shot and killed himself after fatally shooting his wife, Dianne Pittman White, 55, yesterday in their home in Randallstown.

Police said in a statement that detectives learned that he was "suffering from several medical and financial problems." They said they were unsure why his wife was killed.Palmer White called 911 at 7:24 a.m. yesterday and told the dispatcher that he had just killed his wife, police said. He then said, "I'm going down to [the basement] to join her," police said.A SWAT team entered the house in the 4200 block of Mary Ridge Drive after unsuccessful attempts to reach White by phone and found both bodies in the basement, police said.
The investigation is continuing, police said.kevin.rector@baltsun.com



Police funeral today to close highways
August 16, 2008
Parts of the Baltimore Beltway, Interstate 795 and Interstate 83 will be closed this afternoon for a funeral procession for Lt. Michael Howe, who was commander of the Baltimore County police tactical unit, authorities said.According to Baltimore County police, there also will be sporadic closures of Route 30 in Carroll County from 7 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. today in the area of North Carroll Middle School and St. Bartholomew Roman Catholic Church in Manchester, where the service will take place at 9:30 a.m.After the service, starting about noon, both Route 30 and southbound I-795 will be closed for the funeral procession to Timonium. About 12:30 p.m., police will close the inner loop of the Beltway from I-795 to I-83, and northbound I-83 to Padonia Road. About 2 p.m., Padonia Road will be closed from I-83 to Dulaney Valley Memorial Gardens. The roads will reopen after the procession passes.