NJ Navy SEAL Who Died In Training Honored With Lowered Flags Friday

MANALAPAN, NJ — Flags flew at half staff across New Jersey Friday in memory of Kyle Mullen, the 24-year-old who died last Friday during Hell Week while attempting to become a U.S. Navy SEAL.

Mullen grew up in Manalapan and was a standout player on the Manalapan High School football team.

Mullen died shortly before 6 p.m. Feb. 4 in a San Diego hospital after completing a week of intensive Navy SEAL training exercises known as "Hell Week." Read the original Patch report: NJ Navy SEAL Candidate Dies After 'Hell Week' Training

A week later, the U.S. Navy said his cause of death is still under investigation and is unknown at this time.

Here is the official fundraising site launched by the friends and family of Mullen. His mother still lives in Manalapan to this day.

"His mother, Regina, and brother, TJ, cannot even begin to comprehend what it means to go on without him," it read. "No one ever expected that Kyle's short life would end Friday, February 4, 2022."

Mullen and another SEAL candidate, who has not been named, had to be taken to San Diego-area hospitals after the Hell Week training on Friday. This was about four hours after their last training, which is several hours of water immersion.

They started reporting symptoms after the water training and were taken to local hospitals, said the Navy. The other SEAL candidate was last in stable condition.

Mullen died.

After the death of this young Manalapan man, the Asbury Park Press reported this interview with a fellow Navy SEAL candidate who could not make it through Hell Week. He said he was unable to walk near the end of the week — "my muscles just were not working" — and that he begged the U.S. Navy to send him to a hospital. The Navy refused; he was cleared by medical and discharged.

The unnamed man said a friend then drove him to the hospital where he was admitted and kept for five days. He was diagnosed with rhabdomyolysis (where muscle tissue breakdown releases a dangerous protein into the blood), dehydration and that doctors told him he was on the verge of kidney failure.

“He represented the very best of our state and country," said Gov. Murphy Friday of Mullen as he ordered flags at half staff.

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