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Death of Iowa Veteran Raises PTSD Awareness

© Paws & Effect
Wade Baker with service dog Honor, March 2012.

Last week, 44-year-old Wade Baker, formerly of Marshalltown, died in an exchange of gunfire with police in North Carolina.

On this news buzz edition of River to River, host Ben Kieffer listens back to his conversation with Baker from 2012, where they talked about his struggle with PTSD after serving in the Gulf War and how his psychiatric service and mobility dog, Honor, helped him through daily life.

"Honor has awoken me from a nightmare," Baker said. "If I'm agitated, not feeling myself, just a little bit tense, he rubs on me kind of like a cat. And if that doesn't calm me down, he'll get up on my lap and draw my attention to him so that I'm off of the flashback that I'm having."

Nicole Shumate, the executive director of Paws & Effect, where Honor was trained, joins the show to talk about how Baker's family is handling the news and what the public can take away from such a tragic incident.

Other interviews and stories featured on the program: controversy involving the Diocese of Des Moines and the Catholic Worker House, a three-time cancer survivor plans to run across the entire state of Iowa in ten days, Augusta restaurant co-owner remembers back to living in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, new plastics research out of Iowa State, and Kyle Munson gives a preview of his immigration forum being held in Storm Lake this weekend.

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Ben Kieffer is the host of IPR's River to River