Revelations

I was just about to get off of my 12-hour shift when the call came out that we had an injured Iraqi. I drove my ambulance up and was met by a small truck with a teenage male slumped over in the passenger seat. This kid got shot in a drive-by on the field where he was farming. (There has been a lot of tension between the Sunni and Shia in the area, as of late.)

I started my assessment and found only this entrance wound in the right flank. I was really worried that the lung had been punctured, but there was equal movement and clear lung sounds. I put an Asherman Chest seal over the hole anyway and then I stabilized it in place with an emergency dressing. When I tightened the the dressing, blood gushed out in an impressive spurt.

I'd like to think that I did not show any surprise, but I know for a fact that I got wide-eyed when I saw that happen.

The kid was rushed the hospital. It turned out that his kidney and liver had the most damage. I wish I'd been able to see him through to the OR. It was the end of my shift, though, so I decided to get a move-on. I grabbed some litters to replace the one I used and to plus up the gate. I was getting pretty tired and was going to drop off the litters later, but I decided against it and drove right back.

I came back to the gate to find Doc Luscious driving our other ambulance with his aid bag still on the hood. This was not a good sign. So I followed and found four more Iraqi males with serious gunshot wounds! We both took a patient each and had our most qualified CLS start treating the others while we waited for more medical backup. I had an Iraqi adult with a gunshot that entered at the bottom of one of his lungs. I sealed up the hole as best I could and then I got to do one of the funnest things I've done this deployment... A needle-chest decompression (I stuck a 14-gauge needle into his chest to equalize the pressure). I actually heard the "hiss" of air. I was so excited!

About this time we had all of our support show up and start to move all of the patients to the hospital. I backed off of my patient as more medics arrived and then I started to direct the patient flow to the ambulances. It was (and is) a truly strange feeling. It gave me a sense of value to be in charge of the situation and not drop the ball.

For most of the deployment I've sat idle; growing more and more disenchanted with my small cog in the big machine of this war. Only in the chaos of our mass-casualty situations have I found peace. After all was said and done, I was talking to Luscious and we were both confirming each other's feelings on the matter... It sounds awful, but we are not happy at work any more unless someone is in need of medical attention. We pray for work and tell ourselves that we don't want harm to come to anyone, but it is a lie.

We are getting bloodthirsty for patients with trauma... Or maybe we always were and now we are just admitting it to each other.