An airman who died in October after finishing a physical fitness run had an abnormal heart rhythm caused by a rare condition that one cardiologist says he's never seen in recruits.
Airman 1st Class Steven D. Williams became disoriented and unsteady after finishing a 11/2-mile run at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland on Oct. 19. The Air Force said he suffered cardiac dysrhythmia, in which the heart beats too fast or too slow, restricting the flow of blood to the body.
It was caused by a “sludging of red blood cells in the veins and arteries” as a result of “sickle cell crisis,” the Air Force said.
Dr. Matthew Phillips, an Austin cardiologist who studied sudden deaths among recruits while he was in the Air Force in the 1980s, said Thursday he had never seen a case like this one.
“The study was 20 years of data and we didn't have one sickle, but then, the population's changed too,” he said.
The Air Force said Williams, 26, of Detroit, had sickle cell trait.
People with the trait, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, usually do not exhibit symptoms of sickle cell disease, but that “some people with SCT have been shown to be more likely than those without SCT to experience heat stroke and muscle breakdown when doing intense exercise, such as competitive sports or military training under unfavorable temperatures.”