Start of a Summer Trend?
The night started off like most other nights. As shift changed I was glad to see that I would be working with Bones at 3 Alpha. About an hour and a half into shift, there was a call that two vehicles were speeding towards the gate. All security was raised and weapons had rounds chambered. I, on the other hand, was throwing my aid bag in the ambulance. The way I interpreted the information was that we most likely had patients moving towards the gate. Sure enough, using binoculars people were able to discern that we had a few patients en route to the gate. I moved up and was met by two men carrying blankets. One of them was wearing a man-dress covered in blood that was from whatever was in the blanket.
I moved back the first blanket to see a 4-5 year-old boy and all I could notice was that his eyes seemed to be glazing over and he was taking very short breaths with long pauses in between. As I moved the blanket back more, I found that the legs had been mangled. I saw femur, muscle, strips of skin, and no feet. In the other blanket I found a 6-8 year-old girl who had superficial burns all over in patches and was missing a chunk out of one of her inner thighs. People were swarming and everyone was amped up. We loaded up and started for the cache hospital. My driver was very green to this kind of thing and needed to be coached while a Combat Lifesaver and I worked on the patients in back. I worked on the boy as the CLS worked on the girl. I have no pediatric equipment and any blood that these kids had was all over the blankets.
I examined the boy further to find that the legs were mush. The worst portion was a gaping slit that started from high on the left buttock and went towards the inside of the leg. As I picked up the legs to look around I saw feet dangling by the skin around where the Achilles tendon would be. As I tried to wrap what I could I saw the tibia of the right leg sticking out at me. The whole time there was no bleeding. I felt around for a pulse and could not be sure if I had one. We were now tossing and turning about as we made our last few turns. I felt hopeless. The girl was faring much better, but was by no means in good shape. We arrived at the CSH ("cash" hospital) ER and unloaded our patients. The teams worked on both patients but pronounced the boy dead within a few minutes.
One of the men whom had been sobbing quietly began to cry and writhe about. He was the father. He told interpreters that he had worked for Americans before and that he’d been threatened. Tonight the insurgents held to their word and RPG’d his house. One of his children was decapitated instantly and left on sight. The rest of his family was coming in, but they had to send a vehicle back to go get them. So we reset the ambulance and headed back to the gate.
The second group came in with two women (probably 20 & 30) and a 12-13 year-old girl. All of them had been peppered with shrapnel. None of them were critical, but they were all kind of dazed. I figured that each of them had been bleeding for the last two hours and that each one was in some stage of shock. Each had a decent strong pulse, but they all looked tired. There were small holes all over the legs and in the arms. The little girl had a good punch to the cheek and small punctures in her mid-back. The driver spoke up, “uh, hey there’s some guys in the way”. I looked down to see two MP vehicles trying to pull us over. We had taken the left lane so as to avoid the potholes that had plagued us on our first trip. Well, the MPs apparently did not see the big white squares and red crosses all over our vehicle. We have no lights or siren, so we just turn on the hazards and honk the horn.
We made it in to the CSH and unloaded again. At this point the CLS guy with me said that he needed to go outside. He had been getting increasingly motion sick in the back of the ambulance. He threw up a few minutes later. The driver would later take the ambulance back to gate and throw up after cleaning up the back. (It smelled of burned flesh for quite a few hours.) I remained un-phased. I was not sure if this was good or not.
When we returned to the gate, the unit who was working the area of the RPG attack brought in a 5 month old baby whom had not been injured. We transported it to the CSH to be with the father. He seemed content to see that she had not been harmed.
We returned to the gate with only a few hours left of shift. I got to catch some food and talk to everyone about how things went. People who weren’t even up at the gate were kind of weirded out by the whole thing. A lot of people were wondering how I could see stuff like that and not flip out or lose it. I started to wonder again, if I was not supposed to be doing ok. My feeling was that it was not my fault. I didn’t shoot his house. Everyone else seemed to think that made enough sense.
I moved back the first blanket to see a 4-5 year-old boy and all I could notice was that his eyes seemed to be glazing over and he was taking very short breaths with long pauses in between. As I moved the blanket back more, I found that the legs had been mangled. I saw femur, muscle, strips of skin, and no feet. In the other blanket I found a 6-8 year-old girl who had superficial burns all over in patches and was missing a chunk out of one of her inner thighs. People were swarming and everyone was amped up. We loaded up and started for the cache hospital. My driver was very green to this kind of thing and needed to be coached while a Combat Lifesaver and I worked on the patients in back. I worked on the boy as the CLS worked on the girl. I have no pediatric equipment and any blood that these kids had was all over the blankets.
I examined the boy further to find that the legs were mush. The worst portion was a gaping slit that started from high on the left buttock and went towards the inside of the leg. As I picked up the legs to look around I saw feet dangling by the skin around where the Achilles tendon would be. As I tried to wrap what I could I saw the tibia of the right leg sticking out at me. The whole time there was no bleeding. I felt around for a pulse and could not be sure if I had one. We were now tossing and turning about as we made our last few turns. I felt hopeless. The girl was faring much better, but was by no means in good shape. We arrived at the CSH ("cash" hospital) ER and unloaded our patients. The teams worked on both patients but pronounced the boy dead within a few minutes.
One of the men whom had been sobbing quietly began to cry and writhe about. He was the father. He told interpreters that he had worked for Americans before and that he’d been threatened. Tonight the insurgents held to their word and RPG’d his house. One of his children was decapitated instantly and left on sight. The rest of his family was coming in, but they had to send a vehicle back to go get them. So we reset the ambulance and headed back to the gate.
The second group came in with two women (probably 20 & 30) and a 12-13 year-old girl. All of them had been peppered with shrapnel. None of them were critical, but they were all kind of dazed. I figured that each of them had been bleeding for the last two hours and that each one was in some stage of shock. Each had a decent strong pulse, but they all looked tired. There were small holes all over the legs and in the arms. The little girl had a good punch to the cheek and small punctures in her mid-back. The driver spoke up, “uh, hey there’s some guys in the way”. I looked down to see two MP vehicles trying to pull us over. We had taken the left lane so as to avoid the potholes that had plagued us on our first trip. Well, the MPs apparently did not see the big white squares and red crosses all over our vehicle. We have no lights or siren, so we just turn on the hazards and honk the horn.
We made it in to the CSH and unloaded again. At this point the CLS guy with me said that he needed to go outside. He had been getting increasingly motion sick in the back of the ambulance. He threw up a few minutes later. The driver would later take the ambulance back to gate and throw up after cleaning up the back. (It smelled of burned flesh for quite a few hours.) I remained un-phased. I was not sure if this was good or not.
When we returned to the gate, the unit who was working the area of the RPG attack brought in a 5 month old baby whom had not been injured. We transported it to the CSH to be with the father. He seemed content to see that she had not been harmed.
We returned to the gate with only a few hours left of shift. I got to catch some food and talk to everyone about how things went. People who weren’t even up at the gate were kind of weirded out by the whole thing. A lot of people were wondering how I could see stuff like that and not flip out or lose it. I started to wonder again, if I was not supposed to be doing ok. My feeling was that it was not my fault. I didn’t shoot his house. Everyone else seemed to think that made enough sense.
posted by SGT Dock at 21:59
3 Comments:
Don't you think maybe you're training and experience just kicked in when you needed it? You rose to the occasion and helped these people as best they could be helped. Doesn't sound unfeeling. Sounds more like they're lucky to have you there. Looking forward to having you back here, too.
Your favorite M-I-L.
I hope this is not the trend you summer takes.
being able to do what you got to do and freak out when you have time to is the mark of a good medic.
Lara J.
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