Mother Questions: Why Did Her Soldier-Son Died From Rabies?

Now many rare diseases can be treated. Rabies, for example, are very treatable. But this month a soldier died from this disease, becoming the only one this year in the United States who died from the treatable disease.

Spc. Kevin Shumaker worked as a cook at an Afghanistan base among the mountains of Chamkani. He also helped feed two base dogs that had been vaccinated against rabies.

In January, when stray dogs fought with the base dogs, the soldier wanted to break up the dogfight but was bitten instead on his hand by one of the stray dogs. Eight months later, he died from rabies in a New York hospital. Shumaker was only 24 years old when he died.

Hearing of Shumaker's death, his mother Emily Taylor was heartbroken. She was astonished that her son died from a very treatable disease. She remembered Shumaker telling her that he had been treated for rabies at the base, but he had only gotten three of the series of injections needed to prevent the disease.

If he would have died from an enemy attack we would've been devastated, but we knew he was in harm's way when he was deployed...I would not be without my son if the proper treatment was given to Kevin. Rabies is 100 percent preventable with the right vaccine, but without that treatment you die. Taylor told the Mercury News.

Shumaker's mother wants answers from the army because she thinks that her son would be alive if he was treated with all the series of injections.

Now the U.S. Central Command has got involved in this incident and they're conducting investigations.