Military mom diagnosed with PTSD after accidentally killing her child

A Virginia veteran is speaking out for the first time about her struggle with PTSD– nearly 10 years after she left her child to die in a hot car.

Lyn Balfour thought she dropped her baby off at daycare the morning of March 30, 2007.  Her worried babysitter reached her by phone and told Lyn the boy was never dropped off.

“In my mind I was thinking I already dropped him off when actually I had dropped my husband off, not the baby,” she told WTVR.

Balfour was dealing with issues at work at the time. She left the baby in the car for 7 hours in the parking lot of the JAG school at UVA.

After getting that life-changing call from the sitter – she ran outside.

Balfour started to perform CPR on her son and in those frantic, chaotic moments she remembers seeing a man in Army uniform come out of the back.  Balfour says she knew when she saw fellow Army reservist and medic, Landon Steele, that everything was going to be ok.

Steele continued compressions on Bryce all the way to the ER.

“It’s the first time I prayed to myself… I was begging God… I would’ve done anything to save him,” Steele said. He had met Bryce days earlier, when he was visiting the JAG school, WTVR reported.

9-month-old Bryce did not make it and Balfour was later acquitted of second degree murder, in part because of Steele’s testimony at trial.

Another revelation made during the interview with the local CBS station was that one year before Bryce was born, Balfour was allegedly raped while serving in Hawaii. Someone had gained access to her room. Balfour says she kept it a secret for years, became suicidal and was diagnosed with severe depression and PTSD.

She later began seeking treatment at Walter Reed and was introduced to a non-profit organization, called VetREST, that helped her to heal.

Balfour has a new mission in life– to help her brothers and sisters in uniform. She’s now the Washington DC Director at VetREST non-profit –where coaches are provided for our nation’s vets, to help them determine the cause of their PTSD in order to “facilitate healing in a supportive environment.”

Steele is back by Balfour’s side as VetREST’s National Event Director.

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