This story is taken from Task and objective.
On December 13, Major Amanda Feindt’s 4-year-old daughter woke up before dawn vomiting uncontrollably, severe abdominal pain and diarrhea.
Within hours, Amanda’s husband, Patrick, was rushing their baby girl to the emergency room at Tripler Army Medical Center in Honolulu, Hawaii. The Feindts, like thousands of other military families, had been told their water was likely contaminated with jet fuel that had leaked from a Navy fuel storage facility weeks earlier. Amanda and Patrick suspected that their daughter’s illness could be attributed to contaminated water, although they were unsure how; the Navy had told them that the water in their neighborhood of Ford Island was fine.
The doctor who saw their daughter, however, had other concerns. Even though they were no longer actively drinking the poisoned water, the doctor said they and their children could still be exposed to the chemicals if they used items like plastic cups or bed sheets that had been washed with contaminated water. It was the first time anyone had told them this – and all they could think of was their child’s daycare, which their two children attended daily and had a lot of these items on hand.
As soon as Amanda learned what was happening with her daughter, she contacted the child development center and explained what the medical staff had told her about the porous materials. Daycare staff had not heard of the problem, but said they would try to find an answer. It was the straw that broke the camel’s back. “I said okay, I’m not betting on my family’s life anymore.”
“I went crazy being told this to me as an individual, but we have 250 kids in this school and all of their staff…and the Navy leadership isn’t telling them,” Amanda said. “No one is being told that by the leadership of the Navy. Like, where is the Navy on all these things?”
While still on the phone with the daycare, Amanda informed them that she was temporarily withdrawing her children until the water problem was resolved. That same morning, Amanda received another email, this time from her boss. He had called the base leaders to try to get answers for his family; Specifically, what were the results of the Navy’s water test at the Ford Island Child Development Center, which her children attended for 10 hours Monday through Friday?
While his boss told him maybe they could get some answers, he said the Navy wasn’t sure if it had tested the Ford Island Child Development Center yet, calling it a ‘ “incredible”.
Amanda was fed up. She called Captain Anthony Pecoraro, Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam’s chief of staff. She briefed him and then asked for the test results. He diverted the question, she said, and threw it to someone else. But they were “beyond that,” Amanda said. They had spoken personally before, and she was tired of being bamboozled. If he didn’t have the answers, who would?
He was “really distant,” Amanda said. Even though she admitted she was beside herself. Her 4-year-old was sick and her 1-year-old had been taken to hospital two days before, but Amanda had no answers for doctors. She cried on the phone with Pecoraro, in “total hysteria” and lost “all military allure”. When another official, Air Force Col. Michael Staples, deputy commander of Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, joined the call, Amanda said she repeated her request, to be told to submit a Freedom of Information Act request for water test results. , a tedious process that usually takes weeks or even months. The Navy did not respond to a request for comment regarding Staples’ remarks.
“I was just a mom at the time, like begging for answers,” said Amanda, who made it clear to Task and objective she was not speaking on behalf of the army. “I was so angry, so angry that the Navy felt they reserved the right to withhold those answers about my children. My children were in the hospital. Like, how dare they?
Monday’s ER visit was the culmination of weeks of fighting with the Navy for answers about what her children were exposed to, as the military scrambled to contain a massive blood contamination problem. water. On several occasions, Amanda spoke with base officials or the director of the child development center and asked for water test results and assurances that the Navy was responding to parents’ concerns. Each time, she claimed she had been lied to or given more concerning information that undermined her trust in Navy officials.
This report is based on first-hand accounts, emails about the water crisis between affected service members and military officials, public announcements, official statements, and supported by existing reports by Task and objective and other sources of information. Task and objective made repeated and detailed requests to base officials and Navy personnel named in this report.
In response to detailed questions from Task and objective, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Marissa Huhmann said it was “important to note that the information provided to our residents, our communities, the public and the media was accurate at the time it was given.”
“The water situation continued to evolve, and in doing so, we communicated new information as it became available,” Huhmann said.
Although this report focuses on the Feindts and their experience, they are not the only family facing similar issues. The child development center they use also cares for more than 200 other military children, and many other families around the base and in surrounding communities have complained of illness and fear of exposure. , and expressed concerns about how Navy leaders handled the situation.
“I volunteered for this, didn’t I?” said Amanda. “I signed up, as a volunteer to serve our country after 9/11. Me. And with that, I know there are risks, and I know there are potentially risks…but now I have to put my children on a register? My children did not volunteer for this.
“My children did not volunteer to be poisoned.”
Read the rest of the Ford Island investigation at Task and objective.