Dispatch from Iraq: 'Medevac, medevac, medevac'
JOINT BASE BALAD, Iraq --
11:39 a.m.
Flight medics Sgt. Jason Westlund, 27, from Corvallis, Ore., and Spc. Scott Thurman, 27, from Keizer, Ore., sit inside a trailer swapping stories about war and life when a voice crackles over the little black radio on the table.
“Medevac, medevac, medevac.”
Westlund leaps up and runs out the door headed to the operations office.
Inside he is informed that an American soldier is wounded at a small base about 20 miles southeast of Joint Base Balad, where Westlund and his Medevac unit, Charlie Company, 7th Battalion, 158 Aviation are stationed.
Soldiers from Charlie Company, headquartered stateside in Salem, Ore., have spent several months in country flying their Blackhawks for people in need. Mission objectives can range from moving soldiers with dislocated shoulders to Iraqi civilians with horrific burns. Other missions require medics to transport blood from one base to another.
There are three categories of missions: urgent, priority and routine.
- Urgent missions pick up patients under threat of life, limb or eyesight or in need of urgent surgery.
- Priority missions pick up patients that have up to fours hours before threat of life, limb or eyesight becomes immediate.
- Routine or CASF (Contingency Aeromedical Staging Facility) missions are always scheduled and pick up less serious injuries.
Today’s mission is classified as urgent.
Chief Warrant Officer 2 Matt Hill, a 32-year-old Blackhawk pilot from Beaverton, Ore., feels his heart pound as he abandons his study session in the coffee shop and races towards his aircraft.
“I wish we had heart rate monitors in the cockpit,” says Hill (above), stuffing his adrenaline back into its gland for another time and catching his breath. He prefers a steady heart rate when flying in a war zone.
Chief Warrant Officer 4 Rod Comstock, a 48-year-old pilot in command from Salem, Ore., is in his 28th year in service. Comstock is already in the cockpit when Hill arrives. He wears his usual expression of a person who has a secret but won’t share.
“Get a good night’s sleep because tomorrow we’re going to be flying,” Comstock had said the night before sitting on the steps outside of his trailer.
Turns out he was right.
Sergeant Eddie Ray Jeselink, a 47-year-old crew chief and a unit transplant from Mobile, Ala., is responsible for security and maintenance. Jeselink is ready for action. The southern charmer, who can procure giggles from even the most humorless soldier, is all at once eyes narrowed and lips set in a stern line.
11:40 a.m.
Westlund, armed with his M9 Beretta and patient information, runs across the airway. His patient has been in a car crash, but the injuries the patient sustained remain a mystery.
“I thought he hit his head and got thrown around the cabin. I was expecting him to be pretty beat up, lots of bruises, fractures and a severe head injury,” Westlund later says about his state of mind as he slipped his armored vest over his head.
The beauty of this moment is that these soldiers run under the skin-burning sun whether the call be for a detainee, an Iraqi child or an American soldier.
Every mission operates with the same speed, and every patient receives the same care.
11:48 a.m.
Take off.
Everyone takes their place: medic on the left seat, crew chief on the right, pilots in front.
The litter pan, where the patient will be placed, is empty.
The Blackhawk soars over the rows of CHUs (Containerized Housing Units) and the bright plastic floors of various basketball courts at Balad.
Outside of the base, rows of trees sprout in a lovely line just like tree farms back in Oregon. The helicopter passes over bushes, ditches and a stream. Three or four cars careen down a dusty road towards a small town of square sand-colored buildings.
The temperature inside the Blackhawk is 120 degrees, which makes heads swell under the thickness of the flight helmet.
The roar of the engine has a knack for getting inside heads and shaking the skull around a bit as ears pop, but the crew has enough experience that they don’t seem bothered by noise or movement. They focus on the urgent mission. Their goal is to pick up and drop off the patient as quickly as possible.
“The thing mostly on my mind is what I can do for the patient and getting equipment,” says Westlund. “I got the ventilator (a pump hooked up to a oxygen bottle) ready just in case he wasn’t able to breathe.”
11:56 a.m.
The air violently blows against Westland’s camo uniform as he sticks his head farther out his window.
Noon
The aircraft smoothly drops closer to the sandy earth.
12:02 p.m.
There is a road leading to a base made up of a tower, some tents and buildings. A car and a medical Stryker wait for the Medevac unit’s arrival.
12:03 p.m.
The Blackhawk comes down on the 30-foot metal landing zone, which is not big enough to fit the rear wheel so it lands in the dirt.
Westlund exits the aircraft and heads to the medical team. He finds out his patient is a Ugandan security guard, not a U.S. soldier as previously called in.
12:09 p.m.
Westlund hears more of the story from the soldiers on the ground.
The Ugandan guard, during a driving lesson, rolled his vehicle seven times at 75 mph, which resulted in a neck injury.
“He had been slipping in and out of consciousness,” says Westlund.
Now the patient is wide awake and talking, wearing a neck brace but without a scratch on him.
“He was wearing his seatbelt so he’s lucky he didn’t get banged up a lot worse then he was,” says Westlund.
Staff Sgt. Christopher Skidmore, aboard another Blackhawk flying behind the first aircraft for extra support, leaves his seat to check on the patient. Skidmore, an experienced medic, suggests a backboard for the patient, considering his mechanism for injury -- meaning he rolled his vehicle seven times.
12:09 p.m.
Over six soldiers help load the patient, now on a plastic backboard, into the Blackhawk. Westlund directs their movement with hand gestures.
12:10 p.m.
Take off.
“He could have serious bruising on his chest, broken ribs that hadn’t been noticed yet,” says Westlund, hooking the patient up to a monitor that shows heart rate, oxygen saturation in blood and blood pressure.
“The vital signs can give you a clue to what else is going on besides the obvious neck pain,” says Westlund. “Head and neck injuries go hand and hand with breathing problems. Monitoring oxygen levels on a machine is more necessary in a loud aircraft because you can’t hear the patient breathing.”
Although the patient’s vitals indicate there are probably no further injuries, Westlund doesn’t take unnecessary risks.
12:15 p.m.
The Blackhawk flies back over the desert, the palm tree forest and the villages.
12:24 p.m.
A crew in Balad are ready to escort the patient into the hospital.
“The Army volunteers do all the moving and heavy lifting,” says Westlund, whose job is to follow his patient into the hospital.
Today the patient is stopped and scanned with a security wand designed for weapon detection before entering the double doors.
“When the patient is not a U.S. civilian or soldier, they do a quick security check,” says Westlund.
The medical personnel in the hospital are waiting for the patient and further information, like vital signs and patient history.
“As I’m giving the report the doctors are beginning the exam and they start making orders. It’s definitely a little bit of a well-oiled chaotic machine, everyone is talking to everyone,” says Westlund. Within minutes the medic’s mission is completed. The patient is now in the care of the hospital.
12:40 p.m.
Westlund, back at the parked Blackhawk, wipes the sweat off his face with a cloth. The crew pulls off their body armor, and they are ready to eat lunch.
Epilogue
The next day Westlund returns to the hospital to visit his patient. As Westlund steps into the room, the Ugandan guard sits up in his bed, smiles and twists his neck to show how well he is recovering.
“He was just fine," Westlund says. "He visited the dentist while he was there, and they sent him back the day after that.”
Cali Bagby is embedded with the Oregon Army National Guard from Charlie Company, 7th Battalion, 158th Aviation, a Medevac Unit based out of Salem, Ore., for KVAL.com. Her work has been published in the Washington Post and the Eugene Weekly. | More stories | Visit her Web site
