lessons learned
The Right Thing
After an aircrew member suddenly dies, an Air Force doctor learns that doing the right thing by the crew member’s survivor can have far-reaching consequences.
In 1994, an aircrew member (I’ll call him Major Smith) developed a sudden illness while temporarily on the island of Guam. He was seen promptly at the flight surgeon’s office and then admitted at the local Navy hospital. He was critically ill, so an air evac flight was arranged to take him to Tripler Army Medical Center, Hawaii. He arrived in Hawaii fewer than 22 hours after presenting to the flight doctors on Guam. But sadly, he died shortly thereafter.
At that time, I was assigned to Pacific Air Forces (PACAF) headquarters, at Hickam AFB, Hawaii. The command surgeon, Colonel Jernigan, asked that I arrange an independent review of the entire sequence of events because of the swiftness of Major Smith’s fatal illness and because his care passed from the Air Force to the Navy to the Air Force again and finally to the Army. We flew a senior physician from Texas to Hawaii and Guam, and he probed every aspect of Major Smith’s care. When his comprehensive report was finished, Colonel Jernigan asked me to draft a letter summarizing the findings for Major Smith’s survivor, Jackie. The PACAF legal team didn’t see this as necessarily wise from a precautionary standpoint, but Colonel Jernigan felt strongly it was the right thing to do, and that outweighed any worries about legal consequences.
The next summer, I was reassigned as commander of the Air Force hospital at Dover AFB, Del. That fall, a locally assigned aircrew member had a stroke, was transferred to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, and died precipitously. A few days later, I met with his survivor in the hospital. We were joined by Mr. Carson, the head of Dover AFB’s port mortuary, and other personnel staff to ensure the widow knew which benefits she was due. It was a difficult meeting, of course, but Mr. Carson was able to bring personal experience to bear. He said, “I want to reassure you that you will be cared for. My daughter’s husband died last year, and not only has Jackie received great support, but she also received a most compassionate and thorough letter from the command surgeon in PACAF.”
My hair stood on end. I always admired Colonel Jernigan. His insistence upon writing to Jackie over the advice of his legal colleagues was simply the way he lived his life — always doing the right thing. Little did he know how, the following year, his personal integrity would bear fruit thousands of miles away.
MO
— Robert Parke is a retired Air Force colonel and a Life Member of MOAA. He lives in Barnstable, Mass. For submission information, see page 6.
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80 MILITARY OFFICER JANUARY 2014
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