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FOR ONE VETERAN, THE STRUGGLE DIDN'T END --

Derek Henderson's hands shook as he held the

railing on the Clark Memorial Bridge and stared

down at the dark waters of the Ohio River.

 

 

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For one veteran, struggle didn't end

Mental troubles plagued man before suicide

By Laura Ungar
lungar@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal

Derek Henderson's hands shook as he held the railing on the Clark Memorial Bridge and stared down at the dark waters of the Ohio River.

A few feet away stood Aisha "Nikki" McGuire and her boyfriend, Patrick Craig, who had spotted Henderson while driving by. They begged him not to jump -- "It's not worth it," they said.

Henderson wouldn't say what brought him there. "I don't want to talk about it," he told Craig, before climbing over the railing and hanging for a moment off the other side.

McGuire looked at his face and saw fear. She ran to police officers who were just pulling up, as the big clock on the Colgate plant across the river in Indiana showed a few minutes before midnight.

Craig kept pleading with Henderson: "God is with you, man. Come on."

"Thank you, brother," Henderson said.

Then he let go.

On that night in mid-June, Henderson, a 27-year-old Louisville resident who'd served with the Army in Iraq and Afghanistan, surrendered to an enemy that has tormented thousands of veterans.

Like nearly one out of every five Americans who have served in the conflicts, Henderson suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. And like many of them, he had made the rounds of veterans' hospitals and psychiatric wards but still was unable to defeat his demons.

Although it's unclear exactly when he was diagnosed, his PTSD is noted at least five times in medical records, obtained by his family and supplied to The Courier-Journal, that cover a period that begins shortly after his Army discharge in October 2003.

Henderson's family believes the Louisville Veterans Affairs Medical Center could have done more to ease his pain, by keeping him in the hospital for longer stays, for example.

VA officials wouldn't discuss the case for privacy reasons but expressed condolences to the family.

Henderson's story is, in many ways, a familiar one. A study published in June showed that men who served in the military are twice as likely to kill themselves as men who haven't, and the federal government estimates that 5,000 veterans, including those who have not seen combat, commit suicide every year.

Experts worry that the numbers will grow as more soldiers come home with mental wounds. Dr. Bentson McFarland, an Oregon psychiatry and public health professor and an author of the recent suicide study, said veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan face many risk factors, such as repeated tours and the constant stress of urban warfare.

"I hate to say it," McFarland said, "but I think it's going to be worse than Vietnam."
Childhood recalled

Henderson grew up in Louisville, the son of Derek and Diana Crumes Henderson. They called him "Snookie" as a baby, and the nickname stuck throughout his life.

His parents divorced when he was 2, and he lived with his mother and two brothers most of the time, briefly staying in foster care when his mother was treated for cervical cancer.

As a child, Henderson was a Boy Scout who loved to read and write science fiction stories. When he was about 11, he won prizes his mother still keeps in a box: a young author's certificate of merit and an essay contest award titled "Proud to be an American." His mother, grandmother and aunt said he also loved science and earned good grades.

Over the years, his grandmother, Anna Crumes, recalls, Henderson became close to his grandfather, a World War II veteran who gave him his first bicycle, went fishing and kite-flying with him and made sure he went to Green Street Baptist Church every Sunday.

George Crumes, who died last year, also shared stories of his days in Europe working as an Army medic, often saying that one of his proudest accomplishments was never firing a gun.

Inspired by his grandfather, Henderson joined the ROTC at Southern High School, where his family said he found camaraderie and purpose.

Henderson's teen years brought some frustration. He left Southern after a football injury and the realization he didn't have enough credits to graduate with his class. But he got his diploma through an alternative program at Jefferson County High School, and his family says there were no indications of mental illness at that time.

In 1998, he joined the Army. As he lifted his hand at the swearing-in ceremony downtown, his mother sat in the audience and cried.

Though she tried to accept her son's decision, she was nervous about it and grew increasingly so when he re-enlisted in May 2001. After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, she feared he would be sent to war.

Those fears were realized when he deployed to Afghanistan in the winter of 2002 with the 106th Transportation Battalion out of Fort Campbell, Ky., which supported the Army's 101st Airborne Division. According to Army records, his unit served there from January through September 2002.

In January 2003, the 106th battalion deployed to Kuwait to provide transportation support to U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq, and was redeployed there in July of that year. Henderson held the rank of specialist and had a job driving and loading vehicles.

The night before Henderson left for his first tour in the Mideast, his mother and younger brother drove to Fort Campbell to take him to dinner.

He said he didn't want to go, telling his mother, "I just don't have a good feeling about it."

But as her tears flowed, he tried to comfort her, saying, "I'll be OK."

In conversations later with his mother, younger brother and grandparents, Henderson talked of seeing a friend's leg blown off and told them he knew soldiers who were injured in March 2003, when Sgt. Asan Akbar, a Muslim serving with another 101st Airborne battalion, threw a grenade into a brigade headquarters in Kuwait, killing two and wounding 14.

He relayed other disturbing memories: the sight of a dead child, the constant fear of explosions, the image of a child hiding under his mother's skirt with a gun.

Although the Army couldn't confirm all the stories that Henderson told his family, it does report several casualties in the 101st during that time in Kuwait and Iraq.

In April 2003, a month after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Henderson wrote to his mother: "I feel at times my being here is a sin … just hope I made the right decision in being in the Army .…

"Today we were given 200 bullets to load in seven clips," he continued. "What does that tell you. They want me to kill another human being. … I ain't scared to fight. It's just I'm scared to take a life. Please pray for me.…"

Though he shared many stories with his family over the next few months, Henderson never said if he'd had to fire his gun.
Temper flares

When he returned home after an honorable discharge in October 2003, Henderson was edgy and quick-tempered, his family said. He began to carry a footlong knife in his car.

One night, when his mother stopped at his apartment, he seemed agitated as he took her hand, forcefully pulled her to her knees and demanded she pray. "Derek," she told him, "you've got to get help."

She petitioned to have him committed to the VA Medical Center in November, and a judge agreed, calling for a 60-day involuntary hospitalization.

In medical records provided by Henderson's family, a psychiatric exam done at University Hospital before the commitment said he "has a hard time with transformation from military life to civilian life," that he was asking for a gun to protect himself "on the battlefield."

Despite the judge's recommendation, VA doctors released him after a week with an anti-anxiety medication called BuSpar, which is sometimes used to treated "hyperarousal" or irritability in PTSD, medical records say.

Henderson's mother said she pleaded with doctors to keep him longer or give him stronger medication.

A month later, Crumes Henderson said, she was working at Norton Audubon Hospital as a night shift nursing assistant when her son confronted her. Agitated and angry, he accused her of interfering with his attempts to get a job as a contractor in Afghanistan -- which she said she didn't do.

Before she could calm him, he sped off, but he returned later in the night. Swearing at her, he again accused her of interfering with his job plans.

"What's wrong with you?" she asked.

Outside, he drove his car toward his mother and two co-workers; the car brushed her hip. He then backed up the car and struck a stairwell. Employees scattered.

Henderson got out of his car, looked up at the sky and yelled: "Oh God! What did I do?"

Then he took the knife from his car and hacked at his left wrist.
Medical diagnoses

Crumes Henderson and her co-workers were treated for minor injuries at Audubon, while an ambulance took her son to University Hospital for emergency surgery to repair nerves, tendons and an artery.

A record of the trip, provided by the family, says doctors and nurses told ambulance workers that PTSD, combined with anger, prompted the violence.

A 2001 study in the journal Military Medicine showed far more aggression among veterans with PTSD than those without. And the VA's National Center for PTSD says: "Many symptoms of PTSD can lead to a lifestyle that is likely to result in … sudden outbursts of violence."

University Hospital medical records describe Henderson's PTSD and his difficulties with "adjustment to civilian life." They say he "talked at length about time served in Iraq" and told doctors, nurses and therapists that he was "looking for peace."

Medical records also say Henderson suffered from psychosis, a loss of contact with reality that sometimes co-exists with PTSD. One chart listed schizoaffective disorder, a mental illness characterized by delusions and mood problems.

Nurses and therapists also noted that he spent hours in prayer. Pointing at his Bible, he told one hospital worker, "I just need to read more."

After about two weeks, doctors transferred him to Central State Hospital, a psychiatric care facility in eastern Jefferson County.

After that, he made the rounds of the VA, University Hospital and Central State. His family can't remember how many stays there were, but said they were frequent. Most were short, although Central once kept him more than a month, and his family believed the long-term care served him best.

His mother said doctors eventually added schizophrenia to his list of mental problems. She said her son was "pretty good" about taking psychiatric medications.

For a few months, he held a job in a nursing home kitchen. But for the most part, he had no jobs, no girlfriends and no hope for a normal life. He told the Rev. Carl Jones of Green Street Baptist that he just wanted to be free from all the pain.

In June 2005, his anger erupted again, when an argument over a PlayStation game prompted him to slash his older brother's face with a knife. Afterward, he drove away, speeding through busy intersections and chased by police.

Police gave up the chase because it was too dangerous but arrested him early the next morning at the VA, charging him with first-degree assault, fleeing and evading and wanton endangerment. He pleaded guilty to lesser charges and avoided jail by agreeing to stay out of trouble and proving he was getting treatment at the VA.

But at home, he wrote rap songs reflecting a growing hopelessness. One, titled "Peace a mind," said "Wondering if I'm next/ Will he pull my card/ What's the use?"
Struggling in the river

Henderson's struggle didn't end when he hit the 20-foot-deep waters of the Ohio on that night in June of this year.

McGuire and Craig said he kicked furiously, gasped loudly for air and tried to swim toward a metal pole on one of the bridge supports.

Police called for a helicopter and river patrol, but could do little else. "A uniformed police officer is not equipped to jump off the bridge," Louisville Metro Police spokeswoman Alicia Smiley said.

A couple of minutes after midnight on June 22, Henderson put his head to the side and faded into the dark water.

McGuire and Craig watched, frustrated and helpless.

Louisville Fire & Rescue workers arrived four minutes after being dispatched and said they acted as quickly as they could. But divers had to get their boat in place, suit up and check their equipment, so the first didn't go into the water until more than a half-hour after midnight. The second pulled Henderson's body from the river after 1 a.m.

A police chaplain called to break the news to Henderson's mother later that night.

She gave the phone to her boyfriend and screamed.
Remnants of a life

On July 13, the day after her son would have turned 28, Crumes Henderson visited his St. Matthews apartment.

She stepped over a pile of letters that had been dropped through his mail slot -- letters he would never read.

She went upstairs, where his camouflage uniform, emblazoned with the word "Airborne," still hung near his bed and his medals gathered dust.

On one wall hung a poster of "Starry Night" by Vincent Van Gogh. Tucked beside a calendar was a card from Jehovah's Witnesses that Henderson had kept. It said: "All suffering soon to end."

His mother gently sifted through boxes containing her son's papers and belongings. She picked up an unopened shirt-and-tie set that he had bought for church during a shopping trip with her.

"He never wore this shirt," she said, her eyes tearing. "I miss him so much."

Earlier, at Henderson's funeral, Green Street Baptist was filled with family, friends and others who had known him. McGuire also attended. After hymns and prayer, Jones described Henderson as a casualty of war, one who died a mercilessly slow death.

"None of us knew the costs, the price he would pay for serving our nation," Jones told the crowd. "When he left the war, the war was not over for him. He had to combat an elusive enemy, an enemy that is ruthless."

Jones called on those gathered, and all of society, to do more for veterans in pain.

"There are other Dereks in the community," he said. "They need to know that God loves them and that they are not alone."

Reporter Laura Ungar can be reached at (502) 582-7190.

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Larry Scott  --