Flight Medic Awarded Silver Star

I’ll just post a brief summary and let you read the original.  Its a great piece.  This SSG got awarded a Silver Star and a Distinguished Flying Cross in the same ceremony for different actions.  No wonder they want him at the Flight Medic School.

When the helicopters arrived at the small mountain village, the pilots hovered while both flight medics were lowered to the ground, according to the narrative, and once on the ground, Kinney immediately took charge.

The medics found the wounded soldiers crammed into a small mud and rock building.

[...]

As the bullets flew, Robbins took cover and Kinney called on the radio for support from the AH-64 Apache helicopters circling overhead. When the Apaches responded to the enemy fire, Kinney and Robbins hoisted the two patients up to one of the hovering Black Hawks. As the patients were being lifted, Kinney discovered the fire was coming from a ridgeline north of his location, opposite where the Apaches were firing. He again contacted the pilots and began redirecting rocket and 30mm gun runs onto the enemy, effectively suppressing the fire, according to the narrative.

By that time, the Black Hawk had taken two direct hits, and the narrative cites Kinney’s “instinctive action” for saving the lives of the crew and the two patients already on board.

Those patients and a third who then joined them were cared for in-flight by Robbins and evacuated to the military hospital in Jalalabad, about 20 minutes away by air.

[...]

When the medevac hovered into position, Kinney began loading four patients, a couple of whom could walk on their own. Each time he moved to evacuate his patients, Kinney and the soldiers came under fire. Kinney didn’t take cover from the bullets until his patients were off the ground and safely on their way into the helicopter, according to the narrative.

When he connected his makeshift Skedco harness to the hoist’s hook to evacuate the final litter casualty, Kinney held on to the line for several minutes to make sure the litter did not spin out of control, even though enemy fire continued to kick up dirt all around him. When the cable was fully retracted, Kinney realized that his harness was too long and that the litter still dangled several feet below the aircraft, according to the narrative.

“He calmly instructed the crew chief to lower the Skedco and instructed the pilots to do a lap in order to limit their exposure to enemy fire while he sat in the open and shortened the ropes,” according to the narrative.

[...]

In the air, Kinney single-handedly treated five critical patients, controlling bleeding, administering pain control, dressing wounds and starting intravenous drips, according to the narrative. The wounds he worked on included partial amputations, femoral bleeding and gunshot and shrapnel wounds.

[...]

Kinney credited his fellow soldiers for their actions on that day.

Oops, forgot to cite the quotes:
Army Times
By Michelle Tan – Staff writer
Posted : Sunday Mar 1, 2009 8:48:28 EST

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