Ronald Donat’s longtime dream of becoming a police officer was in jeopardy.
The 41-year-old struggled to stand after completing a flurry of pushups, sprints and pullups in the notoriously grueling start of physical training that recruits call “Hell Day.”
“You are dead!” classmates recall a sergeant berating Donat, ordering him to sit on concrete at the suburban Atlanta police academy.
Donat, a Haitian immigrant on his third attempt to land a law enforcement job, assured instructors he wasn’t giving up. He managed to get off the ground and rejoin recruits in a bear crawl exercise. But he soon went limp.
One hundred minutes after training began that October 2021 morning, he was dead, according to records obtained by The Associated Press.
Donat is among at least 29 recruits who died during basic training at law enforcement academies around the country in the last decade, an AP investigation found. Most died of exertion, dehydration, heatstroke and other conditions tied to intense exercise — often on the first day of training, like Donat. Others died several weeks in, sometimes after suffering trauma during boxing or use-of-force drills or collapsing during high-stakes timed runs on hot days.
Experts and police advocates were surprised by AP’s findings — based on an extensive review of lists of law enforcement deaths in every state, workplace safety records and news reports — and said many of the deaths were preventable. No federal agency or outside organization comprehensively tracks recruit deaths, unlike officers who die in the line of duty.
“Training shouldn’t have one death, much less 29,” said David Jude, a retired Kentucky State Police academy commander and instructor. “To hear that number, it is shocking.”
Black recruits represented nearly 60% of those who died, a striking disparity given that federal data show Black officers make up 12% of local police forces. Many carried sickle cell trait, a condition most prevalent among Black Americans that increases the risk of serious injury following extreme exertion.
Overall, the deaths amount to a tiny percentage of the nation’s 800,000 sworn officers but highlight another hazard in a profession where shootings, car accidents and other dangers are part of the job.
AP’s tally shows the deaths have grown at a time when departments are tapping an older and more diverse pool of applicants to address officer shortages. More than two-thirds of the deaths occurred since 2020.
A ‘heartbreaking’ string of deaths
A Texas recruit collapsed minutes after instructors denied his request for water, saying: “You can’t get water in a fight,” video obtained by AP shows.
An Arkansas cadet died after he was forced to run wearing long pants in the scorching midday sun. A North Carolina trainee’s temperature was 106 degrees an hour after his death, when he had no water breaks during an hourlong obstacle course.
Citing similar cases, one expert warned in a medical journal in mid-2023 of a “troubling spate of exertional collapse and death” of police trainees.
“This sad tragedy is preventable, but will not become so until our police chiefs begin to heed the message,” wrote Dr. Randy Eichner, a retired University of Oklahoma professor who has long studied exertion-related deaths.
But deaths have only continued to mount. At least five were recorded in 2024, including a New York City recruit who died of heatstroke, a Kentucky man who exerted himself during water-based survival training and a Massachusetts cadet who became unresponsive during defensive tactics training.
Police leaders say some deaths can be prevented through improved awareness and practices, acknowledging that the field needs to better screen for and accommodate health conditions that put recruits at risk and to rein in unnecessarily harsh drills.
“Not only are we potentially putting students in danger, but we’re also putting instructors in precarious situations where they may not know about the risks,” said Jude, an expert witness in the 2022 death of 38-year-old Jonesboro, Arkansas, recruit Vincent Parks.
Jude cited a law passed in Arkansas, amid outrage over video showing Parks collapsing while training on a hot afternoon, as a positive step. It requires trainers be educated on heat exhaustion, dehydration and symptoms of sudden cardiac arrest, and mandates that instructors remove cadets from physical activities if they faint or lose consciousness.
AP’s investigation found instances in which recruits who were in serious medical distress were pushed to continue training before they died. In addition to calling off drills in such cases, academy leaders must ensure adequate hydration and breaks and limit training when heat makes it unsafe, experts said.
Bill Alexander, CEO of the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund in Washington, said the number of deaths could be reduced but probably not eliminated given the nature of policing, which can require chasing and arresting combative suspects.
“If you’re training people physically and if you’re training them hard, you’re going to have these very rare medical events,” said Alexander, who previously led an academy in Maryland.
Still, some leaders say the field needs urgent action to better protect recruits.
“It was just heartbreaking. I’ll never forget it. And I’ll do anything at all to get this message out,” said Sheriff Charmaine McGuffey of Hamilton County, Ohio, who witnessed the 2023 death of 36-year-old Marcus Zeigler after he collapsed during a training run. “We’re talking about life or death.”
An eager recruit for a department in need
When Ronald Donat arrived at the Gwinnett County Police Department Academy in Lawrenceville, Georgia, he thought he’d finally found his place in law enforcement.
He always wanted to become an officer, but his wife, Sharline Volcy, said she initially discouraged him due to safety concerns when their children were young. Both immigrated from Haiti in the 1990s to New Jersey, where they met at church.
Donat earned a college degree and worked various jobs, including installing satellites and cable, but longed for the responsibility and community service that policing would bring.
He finally applied but was initially passed over. When Gwinnett County recruited applicants from New Jersey, Donat applied because he already had a sister living in Georgia, Volcy said.
Georgia’s second-largest police agency, Gwinnett County has held hiring events around the country as it struggles to fill hundreds of vacancies. It’s offered bonuses to combat the officer shortage, which grew during the coronavirus pandemic and 2020 protests against police brutality.
A physician who evaluated Donat for the department concluded he was healthy, with no concerning conditions, according to a form the doctor submitted to the state’s police standards agency. Following the normal process for the county and most U.S. police departments, the doctor didn’t screen Donat for sickle cell trait.
Donat began working out with other recruits, passed a state-mandated physical fitness test and was given badge 2423. He smiled for a selfie in a squad car. He shared advice with a classmate: “Never give up.”
Most departments lack policies on sickle cell trait
Up to 3 million Black citizens in the U.S. have sickle cell trait, yet many adults with the genetic condition don’t know their status, researchers say. Unlike people with sickle cell disease, they carry only one gene for sickle cell, and one normal gene.
The condition, which is diagnosed through a blood test, doesn’t usually affect their daily lives. But it can cause decreased blood flow and muscle breakdown after intense exertion, dehydration or high body temperatures. In very rare cases, that can result in collapse and death.
The NCAA and U.S. military now screen recruits for the condition, which has contributed to some deaths during football practices and boot camps. Researchers say exertional deaths among college athletes plummeted after NCAA-mandated testing and precautions went into effect in 2010, while the impact of the military programs is under review. Slowly building intensity, resting between drills, remaining hydrated during workouts and responding quickly to signs of distress are recommended.
Most police departments have no such screening programs. Many longtime law enforcement trainers say they’ve never heard of the condition, which AP found was cited as a contributing factor in several deaths and serious injuries of recruits.
McGuffey, the Ohio sheriff, said the cause of Marcus Zeigler’s death was initially a mystery. Before his collapse in May 2023, Zeigler was in peak condition and a top recruit, she said.
The sheriff said she learned about sickle cell trait afterward from another employee, who himself had been seriously injured during academy training. She asked the coroner to investigate whether Zeigler had the condition. After ruling that Zeigler died of exertional heatstroke, the coroner’s office added sickle cell trait as a contributing factor.
Since the death, Hamilton County has started screening recruits for the condition, which costs $75 per test.
A physical and mental test
For Donat and his 27 classmates, academy staffers planned an intense hourlong workout — a first-day ritual designed to test physical and mental fitness.
Pushups. Flutter kicks. More pushups. Hill sprints. Burpees. Pullups. Bear crawls.
Trainers say the exercises set the tone for the monthslong academy, which seeks to instill a never-quit mindset and prepare recruits for the most dangerous aspects of policing. But the military-style drills have long led to allegations of harsh treatment that cross the line into hazing.
The risks were so well-known that an ambulance usually sat nearby on the first day at the Gwinnett County academy. But that year, a major declined the staff’s request, saying an ambulance would create the perception of danger, according to statements in an internal investigation report.
Donat kept up with classmates for 45 minutes but became exhausted during a set of pullups and couldn’t complete the next exercise, air squats.
An instructor ordered Donat to sit: “You are dead!” six recruits recalled him screaming, according to the investigation.
The instructor insisted that he told Donat “You are done!” Either way, it was intended as a reminder, the investigation found, that giving up on police work could lead to death.
Donat didn’t want to quit. Three minutes later, he got up with the help of another recruit and got in formation for a 25-foot bear crawl. “Everything is all right, Donat,” a recruit assured him. But Donat collapsed and stopped breathing.
A paramedic on scene quickly treated Donat with oxygen and chest compressions. An ambulance arrived 10 minutes later.
After Donat was pronounced dead at a hospital, instructors wondered whether his life could have been saved with an ambulance on site.
Changes but no discipline after a Georgia death
Hours after Donat died, Gwinnett County released a statement saying Donat had been “instructed by supervising staff to rest” after becoming lethargic.
A fellow recruit who saw that statement on the news questioned the claim, texting classmates, “as far as I know I never heard that or saw that.” One responded that Donat was last seen in the planking position before his collapse.
A county medical examiner ruled Donat died of natural causes, saying he had an enlarged heart prone to abnormal rhythms. That shocked his wife, Volcy, who said her husband was a fit soccer player with no known heart issues.
The autopsy report didn’t mention sickle cell trait. Volcy believes her husband had it – she’s learned their daughters do, she said, and she has tested negative. Today, Gwinnett County still doesn’t screen recruits for the condition, spokesperson Sgt. Collin Flynn said.
The department’s investigation, completed weeks after Donat’s death, found no policy violations and resulted in no disciplinary action. A major who led the investigation concluded, “I cannot imagine a scenario, had different actions been taken, that would have changed the tragic death of Recruit Donat.”
Still, the department now requires an ambulance with emergency responders on scene during the first day of physical training, Flynn said. Changes to the workout allow instructors to keep a closer eye on those who are struggling, he said.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration didn’t investigate because local government agencies aren’t under its jurisdiction. That’s the case in many states, which have not extended workplace safety protections to municipal employees such as police officers.
Families of deceased recruits face obstacles to recognition, benefits
Because most of the recruits in AP’s investigation hadn’t been sworn in as officers before they died, their names don’t appear on the national memorial for deceased officers or some state memorials. And many of their families can’t qualify for death benefits.
Aware of those stakes last year, the police chief in Knoxville, Tennessee, summoned a judge to the hospital room of unconscious recruit Wisbens Antoine.
On that February night, a fellow recruit took the oath on behalf of Antoine, who’d collapsed during training a week before graduation.
Hours later, Officer Antoine, 32, died.
Like Donat, he was a Haitian immigrant who left behind a wife and two daughters.
In Gwinnett County, officials honored Donat by adding his name to its Fallen Heroes Memorial in 2022. But his name isn’t on federal or state memorials. Donat’s family was ineligible for state death benefits because he hadn’t graduated.
Congress in 2021 passed a law allowing trainees’ relatives to be eligible for the same federal death benefits as those of sworn officers. The program includes a payment of nearly $450,000, plus college assistance.
But three years later, Volcy said, she’s still awaiting a ruling from the Department of Justice on her application for benefits, which she said she desperately needs to afford college tuition and other expenses.
Volcy was unaware of the investigation into her husband’s death until AP gave her the report last year. She said the department put recruits like Donat – and their families – at risk.
“It is disappointing to know that excessive strain and physical activities brought an end to his life,” Volcy said. “What was supposed to be a new beginning, a lifetime achievement, a dream come true turned children into orphans, a wife into a widow and a lifetime of grief.”