Transporting a child

I have been in emergency medicine a long time.  I have seen a lot of things that would give most second thoughts about humanity as a whole.  However, the patients that have bothered me most over they years have always been the children. I have witnessed some horrible things done to children in my tenure, including using them as shields.

We received a medevac for a child with burns. The first thing asked following the basic report was not whether or not the child was ready for transport, but whether this was another burn to the groin and abdomen.  It was not the first, nor would it be that last of this particular injury we have seen.  The child, about 7, had been burned upon her abdomen, groin, and thighs by hot water from a stove. She had dressings covering all the areas burned and had been given medicine to help with the terrible pain. She was wrapped in a blanket, had an IV, and a multitude of wires for the monitor coming from her body.  She was stable, scared, and worried about flying so far away from her family. She didn’t speak English, of course, but was quite aware that people were talking about her.  She had never been in a helicopter, and I am sure the only ones she had seen were assault aircraft with troops on board. She had an “uncle” to go with her to the hospital.

The back story that was quickly related was that one of her parents had become angry at the other and thrown the boiling water on the child in retribution. This was to keep the child from reproducing children to carry on the family line. I don’t know exactly how accurate that was as it was relayed through family and interpreters, but the location of the injury led credence to the story.  That, and this was not the first case we had seen.

The transport itself was uneventful, other than consoling the scared child and giving her a “dopa,” or doll.  She was grateful for the doll although still very nervous about the flight and all the wires and electronics she was hooked up to.  We delivered her and her “uncle” to the ER.

I do not think all Iraqis are this way, but we transported enough children with the same injury to make me think that it is considered acceptable at least in some areas we cover.  To be fair, I also don’t know exactly what happened to the parent responsible, but I do know most of the children were transported fell under the “life, limb, or eyesight” clause of the Medical ROE.

This country is such a dichotomy of culture and life.  On the one hand they have a rich background, an independent will, and a gracious hospitality toward strangers.  On the other, they murder themselves and innocent people to make a point, they conspire against each other constantly, and they have no real regard for any life except their own. Then they complain that its torture to stand on a box for hours while they burn their own children out of spite.  What a place to try to live.