Thursday, Dec. 18, 2008

PTSD claims son; devastates family

Today would have been Eric Jines’ 23rd birthday but the 2004 graduate of O’Fallon Township High School is not here to celebrate. He died in the emergency room of Touchette Regional Hospital on December 6.

Eric’s death was attributed to a heart attack, his father Denzel Jines II, M.D., of Lebanon, said.

But it was brought on by a combination of the prescription medications he was taking to cope with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) resulting from service in Iraq, the heroin to which he became addicted in the years since leaving the military and an underlying illness that was detected too late.

Eric served in Iraq as a member of the U.S. Marine Corps. When he returned to the U.S. in 2005, he was diagnosed as being 60 percent disabled by PTSD.

His father said Eric returned from war a totally changed person.  “There is no way to describe it, except to say when he returned to the U.S. his body came back but absolutely everything about him had changed,” Jines said. “There was an absolutely complete change in his personality. He was depressed and sad and angry and violent.”

Remembering his son before Iraq, Jines said, “Eric was a real pleasant kid. When he smiled and talked with you, you realized here is an interested, energetic, enthusiastic and grounded person. He was the kid that anybody would say, ‘There is a success on the way.’

“He was inquisitive and smart,” he noted. “He was a gifted athlete — he knew a full range of martial arts before he went into the service and he was a pretty gifted marksman. He also was a talented musician; it was something to watch him play.”

At OTHS, where Eric was an honor student who gained listing in Who’s Who in High Schools in America, he also is remembered as a great musician.

“The thing I remember most about Eric is he was one of the most gifted guitar players we ever had come through this school,” said Jeff Yates, an assistant principal who remembers Eric’s high school days.

A November 2000 Progress article featured the then 14-year-old Jines and his teenage buddies in the band Fifty/50 and reported the quartet was making a name in the St. Louis area rock and roll scene. A St. Louis newspaper around the same time also called Jines one of the finest guitarists in his age group in the region.

Yates noted, “We have an all school variety show every year called the February Frolics and Eric played in a couple of bands in them. And he was by far the best guitarist I had ever seen at that level.  “I really felt he had a chance to make music a profession if he wanted to,” he said. “He was awfully good. “But I also know being in the Marines was his goal,” Yates added.

As a Marine, Eric was specialized in handling machine guns and mortars. He also was trained to operate with special forces so he was at the “tip of the spear,” his father said.

When he mustered out of the Corps in San Diego, Cal., he was given an honorable discharge and told he had PTSD. Military doctors gave Eric six months worth of medicines and told him get help through the Veterans Administration health care system.

“When he came back from Iraq, we knew something was wrong. His eyes were sunken, there was no spark,” his father said. “But when we asked him what was wrong, he would blow up.

“He did not tell us he was on a cocktail of medications — antidepressants and mood stabilizing psychotropic medications. So we did not know he was taking all the meds and they were having a tremendous effect on him.”

Jines, who is an oral surgeon, noted the mixture of psychoactive drugs Eric was taking are known to alter brain chemistry and change behavior.

It took six months for Eric to get an appointment at Jefferson Barracks Veterans Hospital. When he finally got to the south St. Louis hospital, doctors there started changing his medications. And Eric began experimenting on his own with illicit drugs.  “Eric was pretty much in a drug-induced state from the time he came back home,” his father said. “Then he went from just prescription medicines to getting help from his friends.

“Some of the older vets in the methadone clinic at the VA hospital were selling drugs in the parking lot and they befriended him. He got on methadone and then heroine and went into a downward spiral,” he explained.

The Jines family enrolled Eric in a private rehabilitation program and the care seemed to be working.

“Over the years there were a few sparks. And that made us think he was coming back — that this was a phase he was going through and he was going to conquer it,” Jines said.

“He was in rehab and he was getting psychological therapy. He looked healthy and was in great shape. He was bench pressing more than 300 pounds and running sub-seven minute miles for five to seven miles straight.

“And at Thanksgiving, he looked himself,” he noted. “He was smiling, he was clean, he was even talking about getting a band together to play gigs and earn some money. So he was doing the things you do when you are trying to rehab.

“But then he ran into some of his old friends and started up (using heroine) again. Unfortunately, that hold was stronger than any family ties. His friends and doctors and the people who cared about him so much could not pull him away from that influence.”

Eric apparently knew that and he told his mother Laura of his fears.

“He said something to his mother in the middle of November that I did not hear until last week,” Jines said. “He said he absolutely did not know who he was now and he did not know if he could ever be the person he was before.

“The psychological support and discipline, that was the part that failed,” he said. “He just could not cope.”

Eric checked himself into the VA hospital the Monday before his death (Dec. 1). His father said it was to avoid disappointing the folks at the rehab program he was attending.

“He did not want to be tested for the drugs he was using because if they were detected he would have been told he messed up. And he was afraid of disappointing the people at the civilian rehab program we had him in,” Jines said.

At 10 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 4, Eric checked himself out of the veterans hospital.

“We did not know until we got a call from Touchette Hospital at 3:30 a.m. Saturday (Dec. 6),” his father said. “They said he died of a heart attack in their emergency room and it was induced by drugs.

“That did not make sense. If you are have overdosed on heroin you should be able to be treated. There is a prescribed procedure and with the appropriate drugs you can reverse the action of the drugs he was taking. But they said he had an underlying illness that did not show up.”

If nothing else, Eric’s death should reinforce two messages, his father said.

Jines said he hopes other vets can get into the veterans health care system quicker.

“There are many people in the Veterans Administration who care and try and are good health care providers,” he said. “The indictment I have of the system is its inability to care for the huge number of people who need help. They can only treat the emergency in front of them at the time and many are falling through the cracks.”

Jines then offered a warning for teens and parents.

“I wish people knew about all the drugs that are out there,” he said. “And the kids need to know they are not invincible. These drugs can harm people who are very strong. These are not the drugs grandma and grandpa had in the 1950s and 1960s. These drugs, especially heroine, are so potent they can alter the brain physically.”

The doctor then noted his oldest son Denzel was in combat in Iraq with the Army about the same time as Eric and said, “Both of my sons are great kids in their own way. One came back from Iraq stronger, the other came back broken. And it is devastating.”