By Associated Press
Buffalo, NY – A 22-year-old Marine wounded fighting in Iraq died at a naval hospital in Maryland.
Cpl. Jason Dunham of Scio in Allegany County died Thursday afternoon at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Bethesda, Md., according to local broadcast stations and newspapers. Dunham was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, Kilo Company based in Twentynine Palms, Calif.
Confirmation of Dunham's death by U.S. military officials was not immediately available Friday night.
Relatives say Jason Dunham never regained consciousness after sustaining a head injury from shrapnel in the Iraqi city of Karbala on April 14.
Dunham was first taken to a Baghdad hospital in critical condition. He was moved to a hospital in Germany where his condition improved. He was recently moved to the Bethesda hospital, and his parents flew to Maryland to be with him.
The oldest of four children, Dunham enlisted in the Marine Corps in 2000 after graduating from Scio Central School, 70 miles southeast of Buffalo. His father, Daniel Dunham, said Jason was scheduled to be out of the service in July.
"We're just proud of him, and we're thankful for the people of Scio for being his friend and our friends," Dan Dunham, an Air Force veteran, told WKBW-TV.