Burn center restoring wounded troops' lives

[saigon68]

By: Donna Miles , American Forces Press Service 09/09/2004

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=12875378&BRD=1659&PAG=461&dept_id=8103&rfi=6

Fort Sam Houston, Texas - Army Staff Sgt. Michele Mitchell's journey here to the Defense Department's only center committed to treating burn victims began in late April, when she was riding in an up-armored Humvee near Baghdad as part of a five-vehicle convoy dispatched to pick up troops. The 571st Military Police Company medic, who deployed to Iraq with her unit from Fort Lewis, Wash., recalls sitting in the back seat, directly behind the driver, "scoping" the area for aggressors as the convoy traversed through a series of checkpoints.

The explosion and fire mangled Mitchell's arm and left both legs with extensive burns. "It just ripped me up," said the veteran of 10 years, who said she "knew something was wrong" immediately but never actually saw her injuries until weeks after the incident

But today, roadside bombs like the one that Mitchell said left her legs looking "like burned hamburger meat" are the leading cause of severe burns in Iraq. Infection threatens exposed tissue.And while the pain of the injury can be unbearable, the treatment can sometimes feel worse. Staff members at the center say the hardest part of the job isn't working 12-or-more-hour shifts in wards heated to 85 to 100 degrees. or is it not having to scrub up and don a mask, gown, gloves and boots every time they come near a patient. It's not treating patients so deformed that they're unbearable to look at.

It's knowing that everything they do for a patient, however therapeutic, inflicts even more pain. Dressing changes, dead tissue removal, antibiotic cream applications and skin grafts - all necessary to fight infection and speed up healing - can be unbearable. Spray from a shower nozzle can feel like bullets against charred flesh. Physical therapy exercises, critical to keeping a patient's muscles from tightening as they heal, can be tortuous.

[Jo March]

1. Words can't express what I feel after reading that

* and his cronies need to be tried for war crimes. They need to be stopped before they take this insanity on the road into Iran.

[Jack_Dawson]

2. Fucking Awful

WTF are we doing there?

[readmylips]

3. Image our soldiers able to get treatment...

as painful and horrendous as it is, how about those innocent Iraqi children? There's nothing for them to help them sooth their wounds. All bush and criminals can say...who cares, it's collateral damage due by war. Mr. bush those innocent children didn't ask for your arrogant war...may you Mr. bush...burn in hell.

[TahitiNut]

4. Ft. Sam was my billet (HQ company) before going to 'Nam.

Brooks Army Hospital at Ft. Sam was the burn center then, too. It was both astounding and tragic how successful they were at saving the lives of victims of incredible burn injuries. I can't imagine a more sobering place to be prior to being ordered to 'Nam. When I received my orders to go to Ft. Sam after Basic Training, I initially thought I was going to be a medic. (Ft. Sam was also where guys were trained to be medics.) It scared the shit out of me. Courage was stretched pretty thin in those days.

[Malva Zebrina]

5. It breaks my heart--

Two-year-old, Tabarak Sattar, is checked by a doctor at a hospital in Sadr City, Baghdad, Iraq Thursday Sept. 9, 2004, after she fainted from the noise of a bomb explosion during an airstrike Wednesday night. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim)


An Iraqi man comforts his wounded son at the Falluja city hospital, September 9, 2004. U.S. and Iraqi forces clashed with suspected foreign militants close to Iraq ('s border with Syria, leaving nearly two dozen rebels dead, while U.S. war planes struck west of Baghdad for a third straight day. Photo by Mohammed Khodor/Reuters

[AspenRose]

6. I should have known when I saw "burn center" it was Ft. Sam

One of the best in the country.

BAMC (Brook Army Medical Center) provides awesome care, if you have the unfortunate experience to have to be in hospital. I credit them with saving my brother's life.