Meningitis scare at Fort McCoy is a false alarm

Last update: August 25, 2007 - 10:08 PM

About 500 soldiers training at Fort McCoy in Wisconsin were in lockdown for several hours on Friday while an ill soldier was taken to Rochester, Minn., to be tested at the Mayo Clinic for meningitis.

But the military installation's public-affairs officer, Linda Fournier, said on Saturday that test results at St. Marys Hospital showed the soldier did not have the disease.

The fort had a confirmed case of bacterial meningitis this month when Sgt. Jonathan Forde, 26, of Vienna, Va., died while being flown to St. Marys.

But no additional cases of meningitis have been reported at the fort since Forde's death.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

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