“As we were doing the pushups I got 15 in, and I noticed that it was a lot harder for me to do pushups than it ever has been.”
“So he hooked me up to the EKG and said ‘I’m 99.9 percent certain you’re having a heart attack.'”
Shane Morgan, a United States Army reservist and Afghanistan combat veteran, recently told his story to CBS in Boston — one that has left him with not only the remnants of the scary cardiovascular trauma, but crippling medical bills.
Bills that, despite the fact that he experienced the attack during an official U.S. Army physical fitness test, are not being paid by the military. They’re all on Morgan.
According to the service branch, the medical episode didn’t happen in the line of duty, so they’re off the hook.
More from CBS:
“You have a heart attack during a forced, a mandated PT test and then you tell him it’s his fault that he could have done it at home, but he didn’t have it at home he had it, while he was doing pushups,” [his wife] Jaime said.
The Army cited an earlier blood test.
“My cholesterol was 214,” Shane said. “However on the day I had my heart attack the hospital did a lipid panel and my total cholesterol was down to 185.”
… the Army has just reopened the case … “The physical and financial well-being of our soldiers and their families is a top concern for Army and Army Reserve leaders at all levels.”
It’s uncertain when, or if, the case will be resolved.