Help SGT Phillips Recover After Medical Negligence, Leg Amputation, Medical Debt, and Service Animal Scammer.

Hi, my name is Selena, and I’m reaching out to ask for your help in supporting my incredible friend, SGT Tacinda Phillips. Due to medical negligence and failed leadership in the military with her care, her life has been turned upside down, and now she’s fighting every day just to stay alive.

Her journey started with a terrible decision by leadership: AT basic training, she was issued boots that were 3 sizes too small. Despite the excruciating pain and foot injuries this caused, they refused to let her get new boots. She ended up enduring broken bones and torn tendons, but leadership continued to ignore her pleas for proper medical treatment. By the time she finally got the care she needed, the damage was permanent. She pushed through unimaginable pain just to avoid being medically discharged. Her dream was to help others as a nurse and combat medic and all she did was want to help others.

Unfortunately, that was only the beginning. From medications prescribed to manage pain and surgery, she developed adrenal insufficiency, a life-threatening condition where her body no longer produces enough cortisol. Without cortisol, her heart rate, blood pressure, and other critical functions can fail, and now puts her at constant risk of adrenal shock, which could kill her without immediate treatment. She now takes medication every day just to stay alive, and she has to carry emergency injections with her at all times. There have been multiple times where she has almost lost her life from adrenal crisis.

As if this weren’t enough, the overuse of steroids has caused organ damage. She has also suffered a heart attack, which her cardiologist attributed directly to the steroids she had to take.

Last year (2025) while she was going through a medical crisis and her husband was on deployment, she trusted a “dog trainer” to provide a service animal and train basic commands for another dog. Her cognitive decline at the time was taken advantage of, being scammed of almost 8,000. The one dog she did get back, was malnourished and presented with neglected behaviors. The other (service dog) was given to another owner.

She is no longer actively looking for a service animal due to her adapting and not being able to take on another animal.

*** Updated 2-4-26 to reflect current issues.