Medical report: Army chaplain fell before his death
A report by the Hennepin County Medical Examiner's office says Rev. Tim Vakoc died last week as a result of a fall at a nursing home.
Vakoc was wounded by a roadside bomb in Iraq five years ago was recovering at St. Therese of New Hope Care Center.
On June 20, Vakoc apparently fell at the care center, where he was living, and was transported to North Memorial Medical Center in Robbinsdale. The 49-year-old was pronounced dead at the hospital later that evening, the medical examiner said.
The report described said the cause of Vakoc's death as "blunt force" injuries due to a fall.
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Vakoc was an Army chaplain on May 29, 2004, when a blast cost him an eye and severely damaged his brain as he was returning from celebrating Mass with troops near Mosul.
Vakoc was believed to be the first military chaplain wounded in Iraq, officials at the U.S. Central Command said soon after he was injured.
The major was hospitalized for four months at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, and was transferred in a near coma to the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Minneapolis in October 2004.
After many surgeries and infections, he slowly started to recognize friends and family, and began to communicate with squeezes of the hand or slight smiles. In the fall of 2006, he spoke for the first time in more than two years.
Vakoc, a Robbinsdale native, served as a parish priest in St. Anthony and Eagan before becoming an Army chaplain in 1996, and serving in Germany and Bosnia. He shipped out to Iraq shortly before his 44th birthday.
Vakoc was buried at Fort Snelling National Cemetery on June 26.