{"id":82215,"date":"2018-10-08T09:29:54","date_gmt":"2018-10-08T13:29:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=82215"},"modified":"2022-01-13T20:33:34","modified_gmt":"2022-01-14T01:33:34","slug":"1st-lt-katie-blanchard-seeks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=82215","title":{"rendered":"1st Lt. Katie Blanchard seeks $3.5 Million"},"content":{"rendered":"

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We first wrote about Katie Blanchard HERE<\/a>.\u00a0 \u00a0She has filed a $3.5 million case against the Army Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.<\/p>\n

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One year ago, an Army civilian who tossed a water bottle full of gasoline onto his supervisor and lit a match was\u00a0sentenced by a judge<\/a>\u00a0to 20 years in prison for attempted murder.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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For the\u00a0nurse who survived the attack<\/a>, the fight is not even close to over.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The Feres doctrine\u00a0prevents service members and their families from suing the Defense Department in the event of injury or death, but for 1st Lt. Katie Blanchard, that is beside the point. In September, she filed a personal injury claim against the Army Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where she was working at Munson Army Health Center at the time of the September 2016 assault.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cIs it okay for us to have gross negligence and zero accountability in the military? Because if you look at my case, that\u2019s what it is,\u201d Blanchard told Army Times in a Wednesday phone interview. \u201cZero accountability for the way they treated me and the things that they missed that will forever affect my life.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Blanchard, 28, is asking for just under $3.5 million to cover some of the costs of the permanent disabilities she faces, after more than 100 surgeries to date and an intense battle with post-traumatic stress.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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She had, for months before the Sept. 7, 2016, attack, warned her supervisors and security personnel at the hospital that she believed Clifford Currie, the civilian employee, would try to kill her. Their relationship had deteriorated over the previous year, as she tried to implement an administrative plan to get his work progress on track.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

A link to The Feres Doctrine is HERE<\/a>.\u00a0 Lt Blanchard had repeatedly tried to get her command to take action concerning her attacker.\u00a0 \u00a0I doubt Blanchard is perfect and from what I can gather seems to be more than capable of becoming a First Class Bitch at times.\u00a0 \u00a0After what she has been through…I can not say that I blame her in the slightest.<\/p>\n

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While she\u2019s fully insured with Tricare, she said she still fights constantly to get the treatments she needs. She has to fight for a temporary duty order to see specialists they don\u2019t have at JBLM, or to fill a prescription for an extra-strength, non-irritating body moisturizer she applies daily just to be able to comfortably wear clothes and move around.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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They kept it stocked at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, she said, where she recovered from the initial attack in their specialized burn unit.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“Here they\u2019re like, \u2018Nope, sorry, we don\u2019t provide it,\u2019 ” she said. \u201cWell, it\u2019s $20 for a tub of it, and I go through that every three or four days. This is not cosmetic. I don\u2019t like just putting on a ton of lotion every day just to feel pretty.\u201d<\/p>\n

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She also has orders from a doctor for an orthopedic bed that lifts and reclines, so she can sleep with her head elevated following facial surgery and not risk tremendous swelling.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u201cThat\u2019s for comfort,\u201d was Tricare\u2019s response, she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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So instead, she sleeps in a recliner in her basement after surgery, keeping herself in position with pillows that shift all night, waking up regularly to rearrange them.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cYes, you give me medical care, but how much of a fight do I want to do for that?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The damages she\u2019s seeking from Fort Leavenworth would cover those medical costs that are denied by Tricare, she said, as well as for child care for her sons while she\u2019s in surgery and recovering, and her active duty officer husband isn\u2019t available.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cMy husband is currently out in the field and then he\u2019s deploying,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Lt Blanchard deserves better than this.\u00a0 I am not a big fan of those who file cases for money as if it will change the behavior of those who do not actually write the check…this is an exception.<\/p>\n

Please read the entire Article HERE.<\/a><\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We first wrote about Katie Blanchard HERE.\u00a0 \u00a0She has filed a $3.5 million case against the … 1st Lt. Katie Blanchard seeks $3.5 Million<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":667,"featured_media":82216,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[238,88,84],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-82215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government-incompetence","category-health-care-debate","category-military-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/667"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=82215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82215\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/82216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=82215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=82215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=82215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}