A Small World

I was in bed and the call came in.  The FST had a patient enroute.  I jumped up, got dressed, and was in the FST before I could blink.  The patient had burned his hands and face during an artillery fire.  The docs were evaluating him and the ER at the FST was hopping.  I asked the Officer in Charge for a status. He gave me the quick down and dirty on the patient.  I stood there watching as the doctors determined the patient did not require urgent medevac and we were stood down.  Way out here at remote FOB Sandflea, we only cover Urgent, Urgent surgical, and Point of Injury calls because we are here all by ourselves.  No back up birds for coverage when we are gone.  We live in 4×6 cubicles in a tent also housing our operations, dining area, and dayroom.  Think Vietnam fire base and you get the idea.

I was winding down and had just removed all 70 pounds of flight gear when we received a confirmed mission at a nearby FOB.  If our FOB is fire base small, this FOB is basically a ring of HESCOs with a landing strip outside.  The entire medical asset is a level 1 Battalion Aid Station, i.e. stop the bleeding and ship them out.  We were relayed grid coordinates rather than a FOB name initially, its that small.

So I jump back into my gear, head out to the helicopter and off we go.  A few minutes later we are landing at this ring of HESCOs with a few MRAPs parked inside.  There is an MRAP with the back open and some people mulling about.  The BAS litter crew.  I hop out and get a quick patient report.  Things move quickly in the MEDEVAC world, so with a brief overview of the patient condition and what had been done, we loaded the patient onto the litter, and I jumped in.  The helicopter took off fast and low as I “came inside” to start treating my patient.

The oxygen went on. The monitor went on. I was placing the cuff onto the patient to get a B/P when something struck me.  I looked at the patient a bit harder and realized I knew this man.  We had deployed together the last time I was in Iraq.  We spent 15 months in sister platoons and while we really didn’t hang out we were pretty friendly to each other.  So I raised my face shield, moved my mic out of the way and looked back at him.  He soon recognized it was me.  We both sorta of laughed, but given the circumstances it was reserved.  My old unit had just arrived in country and the medics I helped “bring up” were staffing the BAS I had just left.  I didn’t see anyone because the “old unit” BAS did the MEDEVAC.

So I let the pilots know that I actually knew this patient personally as we landed at the FOB. The FST Crew arrived and we unloaded him and rolled him into the FST for evaluation.  While they were evaluating him, I let the flight medic from the other crew know his status and that I knew him.  They had come to pick up our early morning wake-up call and fell in on my friend as well. Eventually, they took off with both patients on board bound for the facilities north of us. 

As it turned out, I had ties to both of the patients we saw today.  The first, of course, was my friend, and the burn patient was from my old cavalry unit as it turned out.  One of the guys on my crew remarked “Small World.”  I guess it is.