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Afghanistan Journal:
A Reporter At War
American teamwork helps injured Afghans
By KEITH KLUWE
SPECIAL TO THE NEWS-JOURNAL
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Tuesday, July 01, 2003) — The people I’ve met here in Afghanistan are amazing. I’ve gone on combat missions with some, talked about marriage and families with others and just sat around with many, sharing war stories.
I’ve also shared many intense times with them, too.
It’s really hard to describe some of the things I’ve seen since I’ve been in Afghanistan. Some are so terrible, they are beyond description; others are so heroic that words would not do them justice.
Yesterday we had a little of both here at Kandahar Air Field.
Two trucks with Afghan Militia Force soldiers got into a head-on collision about 20 minutes away from the air field. I found out from a friend of mine who is a medical service corps officer at the clinic here that there were at least 15 injured or dead at Gate 2 that needed treatment. By the time I returned from my office to get my camera, soldiers from the medical unit´s parent command were getting ready to move and treat all the AMF soldiers.
The first flat-bed truck that arrived had one of the most seriously injured soldiers, plus three lesser injured. All were on stretchers and were carried by four-man teams of American soldiers to the triage area where a surgeon and the dentist decided who went where.
The most heavily injured AMF soldier went directly into the clinic to be treated. The physician’s assistant who ran the trauma team was doing his assessment while the rest of his team was cutting the soldier’s uniform away from his body and starting IVs. The Afghan soldier wasn’t conscious, was having difficulty breathing and might have had multiple fractured bones.
This wasn´t the first time this physician´s assistant had to deal with serious trauma. He was the physician´s assistant at Fire Base Shkin when an American soldier and Airman were killed and six others were wounded in an engagement, which I wrote about before.
I went back outside as another truck arrived and more litter-bearer teams moved the latest batch of patients. As I followed one of the litter teams, taking photos, I stopped looking through the camera´s viewfinder and took in the big picture.
There were Afghan soldiers on litters all over the floor of the airport terminal that houses the clinic. Each injured soldier had a group of people kneeling and squatting around him providing treatment, and it wasn’t just soldiers treating soldiers. The Air Force air medivac teams came down with all their equipment to help.
Another truck arrived with only one patient. One of the medics went to find a doctor who could pronounce the Afghan soldier dead. I watched as the medics carefully picked his shattered body up from the litter he was on and lowered him into a black-rubber body bag and zipped it closed.
By this time there were 15 Afghan soldiers in the clinic or on the floor of the terminal with more than 60 Americans treating them. Two of the injured were transported by air to Bagram Air Field where there is a full military hospital. Eight were released with stitches and casts, and four were admitted to our small clinic for observation.
Keith A. Kluwe
109th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment
Kandahar Air Base, Afghanistan
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