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| Afghanistan | |
| Revealed: How hundreds of military personnel save UK Soldier | |
| 2010-03-07 | |
This is a Michael Yon repost of an article in the UK Mail. I am posting it here by way of apology to Bulldog and our other UK 'burgers who have been justifiably outraged by the Caliph Obama's efforts to singlehandedly destroy the special relationship. You can't count on him, but you can count on us.
It involved hundreds of doctors, air and ground crews of several nations, travelling many thousands of miles, revolutionary and experimental medical equipment, several planes and helicopters and communications between three continents and cost millions of pounds. The respected American journalist Michael Yon, himself a former US special forces soldier, reported on his blog that he heard the shot and saw a flurry of activity and a medical evacuation helicopter taking Soldier X away. Then began a most incredible effort to save his life. He was alive -- but only just. He needed specialist equipment to do what his lungs could not: provide oxygen to his blood and remove the carbon dioxide built up in its passage through his body. He needed an artificial lung and intensive care within hours. Such equipment was available at hospitals in Britain, nearly 4,000 miles away, but Soldier X would almost certainly die on the long flight. He needed a portable, low-pressure artificial lung and the Americans offered to help. But the bureaucracy of moving from the British to the American military system meant that valuable time was being lost. Contacted by a quick-thinking British doctor at Camp Bastion, Mr Yon sent an urgent email to a group of American civilian volunteers called Soldiers' Angels near Ramstein Air Base in Germany, where most American casualties from Iraq and Afghanistan are initially sent. The volunteers, founded by the great-niece of General George S. Patton, alerted the US Army's nearby Landstuhl Regional Medical Center's Acute Lung Rescue Team, which specialises in going straight to the aid of soldiers with severe lung problems. And within an hour, the team was in touch with doctors at the nearby University of Regensberg who had access to a revolutionary portable artificial lung called a Novalung. With time running out, and Soldier X needing specialist attention immediately, a call was made from Camp Bastion to the US-led Combined Air and Space Operations Center at al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, where all military aircraft movements in and around Afghanistan are controlled. Within minutes, the Joint Patient Movement Requirements Centre there identified a US C-130 Hercules at Kabul that could fly pulmonary specialists immediately to Camp Bastion. At the same time, the 618th Tanker Airlift Control Centre at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois was alerted to co-ordinate the move of the Landstuhl team with the Novalung from Germany to Camp Bastion and back. At Ramstein, a giant US C-17 Globemaster loaded with cargo for Iraq was quickly reassigned to take the Novalung team to Afghanistan and within six hours it was airborne and on its way, via a stop for more medical equipment at Bagram, Kabul A second C-17 was urgently reassigned at Camp Bastion, while the Novalung was carefully connected to the blood vessels of Soldier X's legs. Eight hours later, and within 22 hours of receiving the call for help, the US Air Force had moved Soldier X from a combat zone on one continent to the medical safety of another. The only reported comment from Soldier X's family comes from MaryAnn Phillips, of Soldiers' Angels at Ramstein. In a message to Michael Yon on his website, she said she had met the young soldier's mother at Regensberg Hospital, where he had regained consciousness and was improving. 'I told her about some of this,' MaryAnn wrote to Yon. 'She broke down and couldn't believe "all of those people would do all that for my son". It was a very, very moving moment.' | |
| Posted by:Matt |
| #1 What a wonderful story. If you can keep the Washington (and Washington-like) bureaucrats out of it, much can be accomplished. Hope the UK soldier fully recovers. As Matt says, Bulldog, Dave, & others - we still believe there's a special relationship between our countries. It's just our so-called "leader" who's got his head up his a**. >:-( |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2010-03-07 20:30 |