Schofield soldier dies of injuries
Advertiser Staff and News Services
A Schofield Barracks soldier injured last week in Iraq died yesterday in a hospital in Germany, a relative on the Mainland said.
However, a military spokes-man could not confirm the death.
SUTPHIN
Pfc. Ernest Sutphin, 21, a native of Parkersburg, W.Va., was injured March 11 near Hawija when the Humvee he and six other soldiers were riding in accidentally slid into a canal during a reconnaissance patrol, said Maj. Neal O'Brien of Task Force Danger public affairs in Tikrit, Iraq.
O'Brien said a media report that a bomb damaged the Humvee and that two soldiers were killed during the incident was incorrect. Sutphin and one other soldier were flown to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany for treatment, O'Brien said.
An aunt of Sutphin's, Faye Pennell of the Greensboro, N.C., area, told the Associated Press that Sutphin was taken off life support at the Landstuhl hospital yesterday and died.
Sutphin's mother and father were at the hospital with him when he died, Pennell said in a telephone interview.
An Army spokesman said the Army does not confirm deaths until 24 hours after the family has been notified. A Landstuhl spokeswoman said there was a patient there by that name.
O'Brien said he spoke with 25th Infantry Division members yesterday morning and that there was no information that Sutphin had died. He said there can be a lag time in information being relayed to units.
The Greensboro (N.C.) News-Record reported that Sutphin's family had hoped to have one of Sutphin's kidneys transplanted to his ailing grandmother, Judy Sutphin. But the family learned the kidney was too damaged for a transplant, Pennell told the newspaper.
Pennell said Sutphin had hoped to earn money for college, where he planned to major in either psychiatry or law. "He joined the Army because he wanted to make something of his life," she said. "He wanted a career."
Sutphin, who was single, grew up in Parkersburg and graduated from Parkersburg High School in 2001. His family later relocated to North Carolina, where he planned to live after getting out of the service, his aunt said.
