Jacole Hall, Dominic Hall’s wife, carries on his legacy helping fellow veterans

KAUKAUNA, Wis. (WBAY) - Decorated veteran and Appleton police investigator, Dominic Hall, died earlier this month after a fierce battle with pancreatic cancer.

But even in death, the 33-year-old’s final mission in life could help extend the lives of other veterans just like him.

“It just goes to show that you that he signed his name in blood,” said Jacole Hall, Dominic’s wife. “There’s no other way that he’d rather go out than knowing that so many more people are going to be able to get help and hopefully, our prayer, is that another young family won’t have to go through what we went through, and their children can continue to play with their father.”

From 2007 to 2018, Hall completed multiple deployments to Afghanistan and Japan. In Japan, he responded to the Fukushima nuclear reactor humanitarian crisis in 2011.

Medical professionals believe Hall’s cancer diagnosis is a direct result of his exposure to radiation, chemicals and contaminants while serving in the U.S. military overseas.

Hall is known as ‘veteran zero’ to the HunterSeven Foundation which helps veterans get the right medical treatment they need after being exposed to contaminants while in service. It’s something the Executive Director, Chelsey Simoni, said was a difficult task for so long, until now thanks to Dominic and the newly created ‘trace model.’

“With Dominic, what we did is we put in a few different locations he had served at and we ran it through a specific software program,” said Simoni. “We use machine learning to identify every single exposure that he was exposed to.”

Those exposures are then put in one single document that can be given to medical professionals immediately to help treat a veteran suffering from an illness.

Simoni said knowing these specifics could help with proper treatment -- faster -- for veterans. “That’s critical because you know there is no one size fits all.”

“It’s literally a plug-and-play. You type in a few pieces of information, you click enter, and it, it does what would take me a year to do and does it within a minute,” Simoni said. “It’s incredible because of what we have done now, and this is solely, solely based off of Dominic Hall.”

“Knowing that we’re going to be able to save a bunch of people and have them continue to live their life. That that’s so rewarding. And Dominic’s name will never be forgotten because of that,” said Jacole.

Dominic’s legacy has already started to save lives. The system he helped create has already helped another veteran get the treatment they need right away, giving them more time with family.

“I think I cried because I was so happy to be honest. I was so happy,” said Jacole.

It’s those moments that keep her pushing through the tough ones with two little boys at home

“I hurt, I absolutely hurt,” said Jacole. “I hurt for my children.”

But then there are these moments with her boys where she knows Dominic isn’t too far away.

“We were at the park the other day and he found an acorn,” said Jacole. “He said, ‘Mom, you know, can I show daddy?” And I said of course. And so there was a picture of him and he’s like, you know, holding it up. And then of course his brother does the same thing. It makes life worth living even so much more. I will continue to teach my boys that their dad was a man and that he did things to help others and that he put others first and he put God first. And that’s very important to us.”

If you are a veteran and would like to learn more about HunterSeven and its mission to help veterans exposed to contaminants while in service to our country, click here. If you are in immediate need of help, click here to fill out a request form.

Previous story on Dominic Hall can be found here: https://www.wbay.com/2022/09/12/dominic-halls-service-veterans-continues-after-his-death/

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