Lisa Diann Hiles, 61, lost her seven-year battle with breast cancer Jan. 17, 2014.
Lisa graduated from the IU School of Nursing in 1974. Following graduation, she reported for duty to the Navy Nurse Corp as a Ensign. Her 28-year career included duty stations in Long Beach, San Diego, 29 Palms, Jacksonville, Kings Bay, Hospital ship USNS Comfort, Italy, the Philippines, and Guam.
Lisa always said, “I was just doing my job as a Navy nurse.” That job included everything from delivering twins while airborne to responding in the middle of the night to the call of “fire, fire, fire” and helping locate and put out a fire in a service elevator, to dealing with a bomb-threat in the hospital at Long Beach, to responding to the crash of a civilian Korean airliner on the Island of Guam. She helped dig the survivors out of that wreckage, and then spent three weeks supervising their medical care, saving many lives.
Captain Garsha, Director of Health Care at the Hospital in Guam, called Lisa “the best nurse I ever saw!”
Lisa had a sense of humor. She was compassionate and professional in her work, and attentive to the needs of the nurses and corpsmen that worked for her. God help you if you were on her staff and failed to do your job. She retired with the rank of Captain in 2000.
Lisa is survived by a large extended family and friends which include: sisters Tracy Chugani (Bobby), Buda, TX, and Tabitha Lacy (Alex), Birmingham, AL; brothers Kent Hiles, Hartford City, IN, and Scott Hiles (Jennifer), Bedford, IN.
She was preceded in death by father Edgar Vernon Hiles, mother Barbara Ann Huey, sisters Marla Hiles and Kelly Sparkes, and brother Lance Hiles.
Lisa requested no viewing and no funeral. She will be laid to rest in Anderson, Indiana, this summer 2014 with full military honors.
Family and friends should consider donating to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation and to the Audubon Society.
