Currently I am a soldier in the United states army, I am deployed in Balad Iraq. I am an ambulance driver, many of the calls I get are not serious, some of them are.Last evening I was running through my usual routine, working out getting dinner and waiting on calls. I was trying out Halo three when the call came. My squad leader and I rushed to our ambulance, and started it up. We donned our kevlars and flack vests, radioed the propper people then turned the sirens and lights on. I was driving and it was kind of frightening because I am such an awful driver, the speed limits here never go above 35 mph, and the roads are extremely narrow. In an emergency you can exceed the guidelines I was going seventy five miles per hour to the site.
When we arrived we initially had one patient, he was shot in the leg the arm the back and the hip. He was twenty six years old and he was fully alert and conscious, complaining in Arabic about pain. I got an I.V. and vitals while my squad leader wrapped his injuries and bandaged him. We loaded him on the ambulance, and were stopped as an alligator rolled up it's lights flashing and siren wailing. I jumped out of the back of the ambulance as the vehical pulled up close and we saw a small child laying on it. He was eight years old, and he had a bandage on his abdomen holding his intestines in his body. He had blood crusted on his nostrils and was breathing shallowly. We pulled his pants off to search for other wounds and were assaulted by the smell of feces, he had shit his pants from the force of the bullet in his guts. The bullet had exited out his back but he was not bleeding to badly. We strapped him in and loaded him up as another medic ran up and told us we could expect 8-10 more casualties, this had officially become a mass cal. We radioed our other ambulances and told them the situation. I climbed in the back and began to work on the patients while my partner was driving as fast as possible to the hospital. I got an I.V. on the little boy and he started to lose consciousness. I kept screaming at him in arabic the few words I knew to keep him awake. We dropped those two off and went back for more the next two.
One was an older woman and a baby, the baby had one leg blown off at the knee and the other was shredded with shrapnel. The woman was shot in the gut. The baby was crying as gave her an I.V. and when I was done I gave her a stuffed elephant we keep for small children. The older woman I gave an I.V. and continued to monitor the baby as we neared the hospital for the second time.
The third trip out we got two men one an ab and hip wound the other was an ab and throat. The ab and throat was fading fast when we got there. We had to run an I.O. infussion with Hextend fluids. the other got a regular I.V. On the way back to the hospital I was screaming at one of them to keep him focused on me, I tried everything to keep him conscious sternal rubs, but he lost consciousness on me, when he did I started CPR, I kept going even as his eyes rolled back in his head and he sputtered out his last breath. I knew he was dead so did the other guy in the ambulance, so I turned and started treating him, checking vitals and running a second I.V. in him. We got to the hospital and they unloaded our patients I told them the guy was dead my squad leader looked at me questioningly, they called a doa. We rode back out and waited until they called the scene clear.
A total of eight patients were brought out, none were american. The insurgents in this attack were a group of women not men, they were going door to door shooting their neighbors and tossing explosives into their houses. When we were done it was pretty solemn we cleaned the blood from our uniforms cleaned up our ambulances and waited for more calls. Is it wrong to want help these people survive we are at war here and so many people want us to pull out, but I can't help but believe that had we not been their last night the casualties would have numbered eight and not one. I suppose I see this war in a different light then most people, I see it in heart beats and last breaths, I see it in I.V.s and blood soaked bandages, I see the tear stained faces hear the cries of pain I see the difference we make daily one life at a time. At this moment I would love to be with my friends and family but I am needed much more here and would gladly spend my life doing this. I have fourteen months left here and I will continue to post stories about Iraq hopefully they are stories of triumph and not tragedy.
When we arrived we initially had one patient, he was shot in the leg the arm the back and the hip. He was twenty six years old and he was fully alert and conscious, complaining in Arabic about pain. I got an I.V. and vitals while my squad leader wrapped his injuries and bandaged him. We loaded him on the ambulance, and were stopped as an alligator rolled up it's lights flashing and siren wailing. I jumped out of the back of the ambulance as the vehical pulled up close and we saw a small child laying on it. He was eight years old, and he had a bandage on his abdomen holding his intestines in his body. He had blood crusted on his nostrils and was breathing shallowly. We pulled his pants off to search for other wounds and were assaulted by the smell of feces, he had shit his pants from the force of the bullet in his guts. The bullet had exited out his back but he was not bleeding to badly. We strapped him in and loaded him up as another medic ran up and told us we could expect 8-10 more casualties, this had officially become a mass cal. We radioed our other ambulances and told them the situation. I climbed in the back and began to work on the patients while my partner was driving as fast as possible to the hospital. I got an I.V. on the little boy and he started to lose consciousness. I kept screaming at him in arabic the few words I knew to keep him awake. We dropped those two off and went back for more the next two.
One was an older woman and a baby, the baby had one leg blown off at the knee and the other was shredded with shrapnel. The woman was shot in the gut. The baby was crying as gave her an I.V. and when I was done I gave her a stuffed elephant we keep for small children. The older woman I gave an I.V. and continued to monitor the baby as we neared the hospital for the second time.
The third trip out we got two men one an ab and hip wound the other was an ab and throat. The ab and throat was fading fast when we got there. We had to run an I.O. infussion with Hextend fluids. the other got a regular I.V. On the way back to the hospital I was screaming at one of them to keep him focused on me, I tried everything to keep him conscious sternal rubs, but he lost consciousness on me, when he did I started CPR, I kept going even as his eyes rolled back in his head and he sputtered out his last breath. I knew he was dead so did the other guy in the ambulance, so I turned and started treating him, checking vitals and running a second I.V. in him. We got to the hospital and they unloaded our patients I told them the guy was dead my squad leader looked at me questioningly, they called a doa. We rode back out and waited until they called the scene clear.
A total of eight patients were brought out, none were american. The insurgents in this attack were a group of women not men, they were going door to door shooting their neighbors and tossing explosives into their houses. When we were done it was pretty solemn we cleaned the blood from our uniforms cleaned up our ambulances and waited for more calls. Is it wrong to want help these people survive we are at war here and so many people want us to pull out, but I can't help but believe that had we not been their last night the casualties would have numbered eight and not one. I suppose I see this war in a different light then most people, I see it in heart beats and last breaths, I see it in I.V.s and blood soaked bandages, I see the tear stained faces hear the cries of pain I see the difference we make daily one life at a time. At this moment I would love to be with my friends and family but I am needed much more here and would gladly spend my life doing this. I have fourteen months left here and I will continue to post stories about Iraq hopefully they are stories of triumph and not tragedy.
cheers, brother!