Joshua Issac
Cause of Death: Jumped from a 10ft platform during water training – in a coma for four years
“Josh decided to join the military after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, setting his sites on the U. S. Marine Corps. Two days after graduating from Fayette County’s McIntosh High School in 2003, Josh headed to Marine Corps boot camp at Parris Island, S.C.
Josh quickly acclimated to camp and grew close to the other men of Platoon 2064.
But tragedy struck on June 30, 2003. That morning Josh’s platoon took part in routine combat survival class at a Parris Island pool.
Moments after jumping off a 10-foot-tall platform, Josh fell limp in the water and stopped breathing, according to Marine Corps investigators. He was rushed to a nearby naval hospital and then to the Medical University of South Carolina hospital in Charleston.
Malia Isaac rushed to Charleston, but by then it was clear: There was little doctors could do. Josh would spend the next four years with minimal brain function. He was treated in Charleston for eight weeks, then at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta at Scottish Rite.
For the past three years, he has been in room 112 of Dogwood Health and Rehabilitation Center in Fairburn, an 82-bed facility that houses mostly elderly patients. The federal government paid Josh’s monthly $4,500 bill.
In an inch-thick report, the Marine Corps determined Josh likely suffered from hypoxia — prolonged oxygen deprivation — because his breathing muscles were temporarily paralyzed. Josh went without air to his brain for at least eight to 10 minutes, which could result in irreversible damage, according to the report.” – Article 1