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A 40-year-old Army sergeant who was training to be a drill sergeant was found dead after failing to return from a land navigation course at a South Carolina military base.
Search crews found Staff Sgt. Jaime Contreras nearly 11 hours after he was supposed to complete the three-hour course Monday at Columbia’s Fort Jackson.
Contreras was only about 50 yards off course “but that’s very unforgiving terrain,” said Major John Farrell, the director of emergency services at the Army’s largest training base.
Brig. Gen. Jason Kelly, the commander of Fort Jackson, has released few details about what may have happened to Contreras, saying the investigation has just begun.
“We don’t know the cause of his deviation, if any, to the course or his cause of death,” Kelly said at a Wednesday news conference.
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Contreras was a member of the 82nd Airborne Division and lived in Las Vegas, Kelly said.
“We are offering support to both his family and his teammates and we will continue to do so,” said Kelly.
Land navigation training involves using maps, compasses and other tools to locate particular locations on a 2.3 square mile grid.
A US Army sergeant was found dead after going off course during land navigation training at the South Carolina base.
Contreras had followed a training with a buddy on Friday. On Monday, more than 90 drill sergeant trainees were sent on individual missions, army officials said.
The course would run from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. When Contreras hadn’t returned by 2 p.m., Fort Jackson began a massive search and enlisted local and state law enforcement to help, Farrell said.
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Eventually, searches were able to get a cellphone ping of Contreras, and flight and ground crews found his body around 11:30 p.m. Monday, Farrell said.
Without knowing exactly what points Contreras was trying to reach, it’s hard to say exactly how far off course he was, Farrell said.
“He wasn’t far out of bounds on the track,” Farrell said.
