| Submit your comments on this article |
| Iraq |
| Field Hospital Treats Americans, Iraqis Alike |
| 2003-03-29 |
| A 5-month-old a baby named Flower lies in a wooden medical supplies crate, wrapped in a green Army blanket, her tiny feet bandaged and bloodied by bullet wounds. Her mother and father are dead. ``She's just a super trooper,'' said Sgt. Wendy Oehlman, in a dirt-caked room that serves as a makeshift pediatrics ward for the 86th Combat Support Hospital. Over a frantic 24-hour period, the medical unit took in more than 100 casualties — wounded American soldiers, Iraqi prisoners of war and civilian victims of crossfire between the two sides, victims like Flower, the translation of her Arabic name. Near the baby girl, a 40-year-old woman wounded by shrapnel tried to explain in fractured English how her family had fled Baghdad, fearing U.S. bombings. On the road out, she said her husband, a shopkeeper, and her 15-year-old son, were killed in the crossfire by American troops. ``I want to go out of Iraq,'' she said, pronouncing her name as Ennom, but it was unclear where she and her two surviving children would seek refuge. Flower's mother died cradling the infant in her arms. Now an aunt, sitting stoically on a bare wooden bed, would breast-feed her. Col. Harry Warren, the unit commander and an orthopedic surgeon who operated on the child, said both her feet had been lanced by a bullet and that she suffered a third wound to the side of her chest. Another child, whose name was not known to hospital staff, was shot through the brain when U.S. soldiers opened fire on Iraqis armed with AK-47 rifles who charged them from a bus, Warren said. The incident happened near Nasiriyah on Wednesday. Both parents of the girl, who was 3 years old, were wounded in a firefight near Nasiriyah, where U.S. Marines are battling resistance, most of it from hardline supporters of Saddam Hussein. ``The younger they are, the harder it is. Her chances of survival were practically zero,'' said Capt. Robert E. Burnett, of New Orleans, who was supervising the triage when casualties begin pouring in by road and air on Thursday. When she died, the girl was placed side by side with a Marine killed in a vehicle accident. ``We exceeded what we were supposed to be capable of doing,'' Warren, of Houston, said of the chaotic 24 hours. ``I'm just as proud of what the medics did as anything the best doctors could do in the biggest hospitals in the world.'' Without warning, two Marine Chinook helicopters flew in casualties, the first with 30 wounded. Twenty-two others arrived in ambulances, followed by still others on Army Black Hawk helicopters. At the same time, the hospital was trying to evacuate wounded but stabilized American soldiers to a hospital in Kuwait. The field hospital's 10 doctors worked around the clock. Warren performed four surgeries between directing overall operations. Nurses, many of them women, calmed down initially fearful Iraqi citizens with gentle voices and a few phrases in Arabic like ``Where does it hurt?'' read off small plastic cards they carry. ``I consider my patients to be Iraqi civilians and enemy prisoners. They get the same treatment as Americans,'' Warren said. The woman who lost her husband and son agreed. ``Very nice,'' she said of the treatment that her surviving families members had received. Warren said the hospital, now staffed by 180 troops, would be expanding and improving its care. Medical supplies are adequate for now — provided there are no more days with mass casualties. But some things had to be improvised — babies were being fed infant formula through surgical gloves fashioned to resemble nipples. An Iraqi ambulance and stretchers found on the air base were being used and more than 100 gas masks that were discovered could be donned by patients in the event of a chemical attack, Warren said. Oehlman, a 24-year-old nurse from Long Beach, Calif., said she only got emotional once - when she held a wounded youngster in her arms and said a prayer. ``Then I heard a kind of gurgle, and a few moments later she was dead,'' the nurse said sadly. ``She went to a better place.'' Wonder if the peaceniks know about this. Wonder if they actually think the Saddamites would do anything like this. |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #4 Yea, we're so compasionate. Tell that to the families of the over 600 Iraqi citizens dead now, and the over 4000 injured. |
| Posted by: someone who didn't vote for Bush 2003-04-01 19:47:40 |
| #3 We've always been one of the most compassionate military forces in the world. There are literally thousands of Vietnamese adults alive today that would have died as children without our medical intervention. My dad, in Germany during WWII, told stories of GI's giving half - or more - of their limited rations to starving German children, even in the midst of combat. The same stories are told of our occupation forces in Japan, and throughout our history. It's one of the things that sets us apart from others, and makes us great. It's always good to hear that it's still a part of our military culture. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2003-03-29 14:15:23 |
| #2 ...were killed in the crossfire by American troops. Not to seem unsympathetic, but if they were caught in crossfire, how did they know that it was American troops? Or was this detail added by al-Guardian? |
| Posted by: RW 2003-03-29 07:50:15 |
| #1 wiping away the tears....God Bless America! |
| Posted by: john 2003-03-29 06:30:11 |