Scarred, but not shaken: One Army officer’s story of overcoming the odds

Photo By David Overson | U.S. Army Lt. Col. Jason Carter poses with medical staff prior to being released from the hospital after undergoing surgery (Courtesy photo).  

GERMANY

10.23.2023

Courtesy Story

U.S. Army Europe and Africa     

There’s something about the autumn in Germany – it’s fest season; the temperatures start to cool after a long summer with no air conditioning; and then there’s celebrating holidays in your host country. Kids are excited about Halloween and what costumes they’ll wear, and Thanksgiving is a whole other experience where you don’t just gather with family, but you open your homes to friends, as well.

For their first Fall season during this tour in Germany, the Carter family was looking forward to all those things.

On Oct. 20, 2022, Lt. Col. Jason Carter, then the operations officer for the 56th Artillery Command, and his wife Candice, were prepping their costumes for his unit’s inaugural Halloween Family Fun Run the next morning.

But, around 3 a.m., Jason woke up feeling miserable. He was weak and running a 103-degree fever. He took ibuprofen and went back to sleep. He woke up two hours later feeling worse, with a 103.8-degree fever and sharp pains on the upper left side of his body between his armpit and pectoral muscle.

He called the health clinic for an appointment, but nothing was available. After jokingly calling him “weak sauce,” for missing the Fun Run she’d just completed, his wife Candice took him to Saint Joseph’s Hospital in Wiesbaden, expecting to pick him up after a few hours. However, when the medical staff started running test after test, scan after scan, nothing was making sense. Despite fever-reducing medicines, his temperature wasn’t falling. The pain was worsening. His skin was red and hot to the touch. His body started to swell – especially in his hands and feet.

The medical team was puzzled and growing increasingly concerned. Symptoms worsened despite medical intervention, and they were at a loss trying to figure out the cause.

Jason spent that night at Saint Joseph’s. Soon, staff told him he couldn’t eat in case he needed surgery. He knew he wasn’t feeling well, but the thought of an operation seemed outrageous. He told Candice this may not be a quick trip after all.

The next day, Oct. 22, the medical team summoned a thoracic surgeon from another hospital to assess a radiological test they’d performed. They‘d called Dr. Frank Kirschner from Helios Dr. Horst Schmidt Kliniken (HSK). This wasn’t standard procedure – Jason learned that doctors “don’t just go to someone else’s hospital to examine test results.” But, Dr. Kirschner later said he had a feeling he needed to go. The Carters credit this “hunch” to saving Jason’s life.

Candice was still at home with their four sons. Having received limited communication, she didn’t understand the gravity of the situation. Jason tried communicating via text, even drawing a picture in an attempt to explain what was going on. He was trying but told his wife that his “brain wasn’t working too good,” and that he was becoming frustrated. He seemed to be fading.

“His messages were so vague, and the wording was strange,” Candice said. “By the second day, I was thinking, ‘he has some type of virus and they probably want to give him strong antibiotics.’ I suspected he may have to spend another night in the hospital, but wasn’t too concerned.”

By the evening, she started to think the situation was serious.

Serious was an understatement. After reviewing the test results, Dr. Kirschner told Jason “If this is what I think it is, and I do not operate on this very night, you will almost certainly die.”

Jason texted Candice to say he was being transferred for emergency surgery. She had no idea what the surgery was for or where he was going.

Meanwhile, since time was of the essence, Jason was whisked away to HSK where he was met with a team of two trauma surgeons and four thoracic surgeons. Almost immediately, this team conducted the first of what would eventually be 10 major surgeries.

He woke up with a strange hose attached to his left side.

“The hose led to a wound vacuum, which was a small machine filled with some goo that was obviously coming from my insides,” he said. “The area around and below the point where the hose connected to my body was bright red and painful.”

Even after the surgery, Jason still didn’t know what was going on. He began having terrible nightmares and hallucinations. Almost a year later, he doesn’t like to think of what he saw when he closed his eyes.

“I was exhausted, but scared to close my eyes because of what I saw when I did,” he said.

The redness continued to spread, eventually down his left thigh, almost to the knee. At some point, Jason was in bed, gazing out the window trying to wrap his head around the past few days. The director of the Thoracic Surgery Department of HSK, Dr. Jasmine Dei-Anang, pulled up a chair and grabbed his hand. Biopsy results were in, and this nightmare now had a name – necrotizing fasciitis, also known as “flesh eating disease.”

She explained to Carter the disease was rare. It was spreading quickly, though the team of doctors felt certain they could stay ahead of the spread and improve his chances of survival through additional surgeries.

She also told Carter the morbidity rate was close to 90 percent at his current stage.

On Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2022, doctors opened the left side of his body from his armpit to almost his knee to remove all necrotic tissue.
It was a lot for Jason to process.

He learned that “only” around 70 percent of people die from this strange disease, but that didn’t really cheer him up. He thought about his family. Was it fair that he’d spent so long in uniform with long days and frequent absences? Had he been a Dad his kids would be proud of?

With his mind racing, he allowed himself a moment to cry. And then it hit him. He understood exactly what the Dr. was saying. He felt mentally sharp and physically present, albeit weak. “There was no bright light. No harps. I didn’t see my Grandma or Elvis, so I knew I wasn’t dead, nor had I planned on surrendering.” Jason decided right then to beat necrotizing fasciitis.

“I don’t remember much else from those early days, other than being both encouraged and frightened by how amazed the doctors were that I was still alive,” he said. “I thanked Dr. Kirschner for trusting his gut to operate on me that ‘very night’. He said in his 31 years, it was the only case of Necrotic Fasciitis he’d seen. For him to have a ‘hunch’ for a condition he’d never treated is miraculous to me.”

Meanwhile, with the help of her sister, Destiny, who dropped everything and immediately flew to Germany, and later Jason’s sister, Allison, who applied for and received an emergency passport, Candice was keeping it together for her boys while staying connected to Jason’s leadership.

As the commanding general for Jason’s unit at the time, Maj. Gen. Stephen Maranian’s thoughts went immediately to Jason’s well-being and the best way to support his family.

“These two priorities dominated our response as a command,” Maranian said. “From a unit perspective, it became clear several days into Jason’s ordeal that he would not be able to perform his normal duties as our G3 for quite some time, so we made the difficult decision to make a change.”

Meanwhile, Jason’s only job was getting through his illness. Over the course of the next few weeks, Jason underwent nine more major surgeries. His final surgery was done at his bedside on Nov. 18. On Nov. 25, he was transferred to Landstuhl Army Medical Center, and was released to go home on Saturday, Nov. 26 – five weeks and one day after he’d gone to the emergency room for what he thought was a stubborn fever.

“The gnarly 40-inch long by ¼-inch wide scar that runs from my left armpit nearly to my left knee is a daily reminder of gratitude to the surgeons who led the teams that literally saved my life,” Jason said.

After roughly 45 days of convalescing at home, Jason was ready to get back to work. His perseverance didn’t surprise his boss.

“I’ve watched Jason deal with adversity in the past, which he did with grace, but watching him and Candice deal with his illness and long recovery has made me realize the resiliency of him and his family. They have been through an unimaginable struggle, but always stayed positive and thought of others despite their own challenges,” Maranian said.

In addition to the medical team at HSK, Jason credits the support he and his family received as pivotal to his recovery.

“The reason I could focus on recovery is because people like Kate Fuller and Portia Knazovich put their lives on hold for 40-plus days to coordinate meals, childcare and transportation so Candice could spend nearly every day with me,” Jason said. “Colonel Seth Knazovich wrote nearly every day to check on me; Command Sgt. Maj. Darrell Walls personally invested hours of time ensuring family could fly over when I was in ICU; and Sgt. 1st Class Tylomia Dudkiewicz drove visiting family around. It was ‘People First’ in the flesh and it was just incredible.”

It’s something the Carters promise to pay forward.

Nearly one year after his crucible began, Jason said he is looking toward the future.

“When Dr. Dei-Anang held my hand and told me the odds were against me, I didn’t once wish I would have worked harder or attended more meetings,” he said. “I lamented relationships I didn’t nurture. I cried over connections I didn’t pursue. I now endeavor never to take relationships for granted again.”

• Date Taken: 10.23.2023
• Date Posted: 10.23.2023 10:02
• Story ID: 456304
• Location: DE