No Record of Injury?

[Buck52]

If a Veteran was Injured while in the military /war zone...(Vietnam)

AND he never sought medical care but some 40/45 years later  that old injury has caused bad arthritis in both knees, Dr's have mention what the veteran had mention about the old injury that yes it could be related to his now diagnose VA Arthritis 

However  since a Veteran needs medical records as evidence  and none are there because he never received medical attention when his injury occurred...just as thousands of veterans did back in Vietnam  they got injured but never went for medical treatment...we all just limp around for a few weeks until the injury got better and we just moved on.

o buddy statements are good    but been to long and most of the buddys have either passed away or can't find any of them that knew about the injury.

but to file a claim for this and  va Dr mention that it could possibly be the cause of the veterans aurthritis in his knees...this apparently is not good enough for the claim  to claim as evidence.

if the VA says no record of the injury then the claim is denied.

That just don't seem fair to me.

[brokensoldier244th]

I understand your frustration, but what’s is the alternative? So some injuries you can establish a connection to from 50 years ago- arthritis is one of them. Va doesn’t just look for med records, if we can find counseling statements, daily orders, ship logs, lod forms, those can work too, but the situation you have presented is a perfect storm of “take my word for it”. No other benefits entity would take such a claim at face value either, and, va is pretty generous with most of the requirements threshold of plausibility. A example- work short term or long term disability isn’t going to concede workplace exposure, or take a buddy statement as evidence of an injury or an occurrence.

Last week I used a newspaper story about  a ship Explosion in the Gulf from years ago that didn’t mention a sailor by name, but he was one of the few rated SAR swimmers From the USN ship that showed up to help., to establish plausibility for injuries and ptsd. His record was mostly silent on direct injuries otherwise and this was from something like 10 years ago. That allowed me to Establish plausibly to get him exams. It’s not an approval by any means but his foot is in the door.

 

an insurance company would not be nearly so lax on standards. If va didn’t draw a line somewhere with acceptable evidence and the need for at least something, we’d all have ptsd, and arthritis, and deafness but be able to claim it all 30 yrs later. That’s not right either. I’ve used “no medical evidence” of An injury but a really heavy duty mos like mortar crewman with no doctor reports at the time, but a letter from a current doctor after discharge trying to connect the two a means of establishing enough to get someone an exam it literally doesn’t take much for most things. 

[ShrekTheTank]

Did the person write any letters back home talking about the injury?  Did they themselves do a Lay statement describing the incident?  Do they remember the specific day and area they were in as the military does keep track of things like this.

Did they ever talk to anyone back home who can back their story up?  

[broncovet]

Buck:  YOU DO NOT (necessarily) need MEDICAL TREATMENT for an in service injury in order to get service connection.   You need documentation of an "in service" event.  Documetation, not necessarily medical treatment.  

Example from past hadit posts:

    This Veteran was a para trooper, who jumped out of airplanes, making more than 200 jumps.  (This is documented).  

However, he did not receive medical treatment for knee injuries in service.  He was eventually awarded SC for knee issues because he had evidence of an "in service event" even tho he had no treatment in service for knee injuries.  A doctor had no problem in providing a nexus.  Its not too suprising jumping out of airplanes can cause knee injuries, and this is an "in service event". (jumps out of airplanes).

Example number 2:

    You work on an aircraft carrier, guiding jets to land on the runway, and fueling jets for takeoff.  You experience hearing loss, 20 years later.  You have documentation of the same, with no medical treatment for hearing loss until 20 years later.  Jet engines are a loud noise (very loud).  Your audioligist opines that its "at least as likely as not" your exposure to jet engine noise caused your sensonureral hearing loss.  

     In both these cases, you did not have IN SERVICE medical treatment, but you did have documentation of an in service event.  Along with a nexus, and current diagnosis, (in service diagnosis is not necessary)  you meet the Caluza elements.  

Edited July 22, 2020 by broncovet

[Buck52]

I understand what you guys are saying here

this was me were talking about here.

What happen I was on the bumper of a Duce& Half Military Truck  this truck was hot meaning it just came in and was loading personal back up to go back out, ok I was up on the bumper raised the hood and reach over to take the radiator cap off  and about the time I took the cap off I looked over into the radiator  to check the fluid level and hot scaleding fluids came up out of the raditor hitting my head  before ai could get out of the way   I then feel off the truck bumper on to hard rock on both my knees  my legs were bent back wards  all my weight was on my knees  this agonizing pain...so I went to a buddy medic that was in my unit and he gave me some pain meds to take but this was never logged down  he had some in his pocket and he just took some out for me to use to help with the pain  my knees were black blue purple pink for a few weeks  nothing obviously was broken so I just sucked it up and went on  limp around  for a few weeks...of course my co ask me what happen  but since I did not get medical attention the injury was not that bad......but my story is really not about me  if I could get it service connected I already would have did that.

but threes other veterans out there that may read these post and hopefully they can get some insight as to what to do and what to present as their evidence  such as what you guys have mention here.

Thanks

Buck

[Buck52]

broncovet

No I had no documentation what so ever ,  the event did happen obviously, but no medical reports or documentations of the event that happen

That's the problem here.

Only a few of my close buddys knew about it  and my C.O.  but he just made lite of it   and basically had me to just suck it up  he never said that but I knew what he meant     he said if I didn't get medical attrition maybe it was not that bad and just ask all of us to move on and do our jobs

I barley remember my CO.name and can't remember my buddy's real names  we all had nic-names that went with our personality or where we were from back home,  for me I was the OKIE from Oklahoma ect,,,ect,,,,

some were from Tennessee and I do remember a buddy we called moonshiner

but thats about all I can remember.

 

Edited July 22, 2020 by Buck52

[brokensoldier244th]

I understand, Buck. I wasn't meaning to sound contrary- its early in the AM for me, yet. I completely see your point, I just wanted to provide some insight into it from the other end, too. We can take a LOT of things that aren't normally considered evidence as evidence- buddy letters and news accounts, for example- to establish a time or place and a plausibility event to try to connect. But in some situations that just isn't possible no matter how much scouring I do.

 

In the event I noted above about the ship it was the the USS JPJ and Sulut Valor in 2012. It was a minor news event for the day for most places but Navy.mil had a pretty good account of it that was sanitized. I had a counseling statement for the sailor in question from his supervisor that gave glowing reviews of his overall mission readiness, and that he had volunteered to learn SAR, then later was a squad level teacher to other new sailors coming to the ship. I was able to argue that as "well, if he was so good at his job he WOULDN"t have not been part of the event in question, and most likely he'd be first out of the boat". The QVSR  (quality VSR- like Quality Assurance for claims- they audit us randomly and can issue deferrals for us to fix errors or inconsistencies) agreed with me and allowed the exams even though there was no direct medical/sick call/etc of record at the time or later on his exit physical a year later about any injuries or MH issues. *shrug*

 

A lot of it is how much work you put into it (me). I'm still new and pretty hungry, so I probably dig more to err on the side of being able to say that I did as much as I could. I hope I never get to the point of "well, I did what I had to...." to kick a case along.