Former U.S. Army helicopter pilot Katrina Lewison expressed frustration Thursday with difficulty faced by civilians trying to break through the military’s firewall to sound the alarm about a family member who may be suicidal.
Lewison was approached recently by a frantic colleague at a Manhattan business because the woman was unable to reach her husband at Fort Riley and didn’t know what to do. Lewison, who earned a Purple Heart in Iraq and serves on the Manhattan-Ogden school board, reached out to Fort Riley contacts and a team was dispatched for a welfare check. The individual was found unresponsive, she said.
