Data: Thousands of TBI cases off the record

Data: Thousands of TBI cases off the record
By Gregg Zoroya - USA Today
Posted : Saturday Nov 24, 2007 7:17:10 EST

Along with 20,000 other veterans, Marine Lance Cpl. Gene Landrus is not included in the Pentagon’s official count of U.S. troops wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. That’s because his wound was to his brain and hidden from view.

Landrus — who faces medical separation from the Corps and is up for the Purple Heart for wounds sustained in a May 2006 roadside bomb attack outside Abu Ghraib, Iraq — said he did not realize the nausea, dizziness, memory loss and headaches he suffered after the blast were signs of a lasting brain injury.

Army medics who examined him in the field didn’t find the wound either.

“They wanted to know if we had any holes in us, or if we were bleeding. We were in and out of in 10 to 15 minutes,” said Landrus, 24, of Clarkston, Wash.

For the balance of his combat tour, he tried to shake off the blast’s effects and keep going. Now, “my goal is to get back to a normal life,” he said.

A USA Today survey of four military installations and the Department of Veterans Affairs, where combat veterans are routinely screened for brain injury, has found that about 20,000 people show signs of damage. That’s nearly five times the number officially listed by the Pentagon — 4,471.


Rest of article at: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/11/gns_tbi_071123/