(NewsNation) — Karoline Stancik’s Army career came to a sudden halt after receiving a COVID vaccine. Now, after three years, three heart attacks, one stroke, an emergency pacemaker surgery and countless battles with the Deptartment of Defense, Stancik shared some good news with NewsNation on Friday night.
“We got granted full relief of my case,” Stancik told host Chris Cuomo, who brought her case to light several weeks ago and highlighted the work of a group advocating for Stancik and many other injured veterans.
“Your reporting has obviously helped motivate DOD leadership — maybe not necessarily because it was the right thing, but after being exposed, they had no choice but to correct this injustice,” said Jeremy Sorenson, director of Uniformed Services Justice and Advocacy Group (USJAG), which help injured service members deal with the Pentagon’s bureaucracy.
“She’ll never get her three years of her life back from when this ordeal started,” Sorenson added. “But at least her record’s being corrected, and we expected that the DOD will expedite paying her now and covering her medical bills.”
Sorenson says Stancik’s problems are not over, as the process of being “made whole” will take time. And he says that Stancik is just one of thousands of veterans who face similar challenges dealing with DOD.
There’s “a much larger systemic issue of the mistreatment of injured service members for the last two years. We’ve been ignored. We’ve been deflected. We’ve really been gaslit about all of this.”
Stancik, who faced a mental health crisis over what she said was the Army abandoning her, also praised Cuomo for additional help.
“Thank you for the help that you provided me to get mental health treatment. You’ve responded really quickly on that.”
“I told you there was an upside to knowing someone who’s completely crazy,” Cuomo joked. “I have lots of mental health experts in my life!”
