Wednesday, July 22, 2009

And the Carnage Continues

Being in the field does funny things to people. I started the morning with a bloody nose, and the discovery that the drippy moulage blood tastes like peppermint when it seeps down your septum and into your lips. In related news, Tyler Powell started the morning with broken fifth metacarpals, almost exactly like Major Burns's during train-up week. It was rather unfortunate that we had to report to the same sick call, but at least Jaime Piercy, who had woken up unable to see, was there between us to distract us at first. By the time we arrived at the EMED, even that was unable to keep us apart, and we started to fight again. I probably called him some names that I would have regretted in the future, except that he deserved them. By the time the MS-4s running the EMED had pulled us apart and restrained us in zip ties (not an easy process, I assure you), my nose really needed attention, so they brought me in for an eval. Pressure didn't stop the bleeding and I squirmed too much for silver nitrate, so they had to un-cuff me to lie me down and give me IV morphine. Which was a bad idea because as soon as I laid down, the blood started filling my throat, and I started coughing and choking, a hacking fit so violent that I currently have a real-world bruise on my cheek from hitting it against the metal side of the litter. They finally sedated me (that seems to happen a lot on this deployment), anesthetized me, and cauterized my bleeding septum. It came out in the history that I was taking enormous doses of asprin to control headaches, and no amount of pressure would have made my blood clot. Also, that Tyler and I were fighting because he had slept with my boyfriend and I had threatened to out him. And we were battle buddies, too. The traitor. The punk. I can't believe he would do that to me. Even the morphine didn't really get rid of my rage, though it did take the edge off. Apparently such skirmishes were happening at sick calls all over the deployment that day.

I wasn't back on duty long before I was thrown from an exploding car and sustained a closed-skull fracture. It looked so horrible that the medics left me for expectant the first four times someone passed by me. They even left with the ambulances with me still on the ground. Nobody even bothered to examine me--they would have found me responsive to at least painful stimuli. So I had to break role and start screaming to get their security guard to notice he had left me, and then go back into my mostly-unconscious state.

It was the kind of day that reminds you of the Chinese curse "may you live in interesting times." Loren Walwyn-Tross was attacked by ninjas who almost killed him had he not been able to stumble into the BAS with the ninja star still embedded in his forehead. Later on in the day, I found his face spattered with bullets. Seamus Cobb got circumferential burns all across his torso, mere hours after an explosion that blew open his skull so bad that brain matter and bone were sticking out. The same explosion knocked out my hearing, forcing me to yell all communication to the doctors and their assistants. The burns got Dan Brennan and Scott Story also. An unexploded ordinance, part of Marion Keehn's rogue model rocket project, embedded itself in Robert Fenequito's head, which forced his eye to dangle out its socket by its nerve and artery. He was barely back at work when an explosion burned him all over the face. Kevin Gray lost an arm and had to go all around the woods looking for it. I still don't know what happened to the arm Greg Nishimura lost. Frances Rosario got an open fracture to both her radius and ulna. Nicole Baker was hit by rectal bleeding, which looked pretty similar to Jaime Piercy's exploded bladder. Dan Bailey's foot was badly mangled. Chris Oching was impaled with a chest. I was shot in the left chest on two separate occasions, once leaving me with a tension pneumothorax that took three decompressions and once leaving me with an open pneumothorax that became a tension pneumo once occluded. I was gasping from the time they appeared within hearing distance until they finally successfully treated me and just the hyperventilation was making my arms and feet tingly and numb. Jesse Giffhorn's forearm was mangled. Tara McClusky's was in a different car accident, which snapped her forearm, leaving a huge bone sticking out. She took it better than Seth Olchese, who did the same thing. Fred Nielson, may he rest in peace, lost several inches of gray matter when his head split open. Liz Miller got cuts all over her face. I didn't get all the details, but the rumor is that she provoked whoever did it. Aubry also had cuts accross her cheeks. I never found out if the two were related. Muoy Lim lost a finger, as did Heather Scheibe. Robbie Wetzler, after remaining in tact all of yesterday, was peppered today with fragments of something all over his face and arm. And John Gillis--I'll miss him. By the time they found him, he was so red and black and blistered with burns that he looked like Darth Maul in his impressionist phase. Eric Abdul threatened to kill his commanding officer because he wasn't given emergency leave to deal with his encarcerated wife. Amy Alexander's arm was pretty much destroyed. Fred Nielson's OCD hit a stage where he wouldn't even go into the commander's office because of its decor; then to top it off, he was shot in the buttock. Andrew Fisher chose the wrong time to have his bowel eviscerated--right when all the rest of us were hit by a car bomb--so whatever chance he might have had to be evacuated within a reasonable window of time to save him was lost.

For forensic purposes, I documented many of these injuries photographically. It would be disturbing and beyond the bounds of good taste to make them available here, but, if we get approval from our chain of command, we'll try to set up a restricted, by-invitation blog or photo album for the photos that would be way too grafic to leave open to the public, and those who want to see will be able to just request to be given access.

There's only so much people can take before they start falling apart, especially when they're feeling like no one is attending to their needs. When the medic finally decompressed my first pneumothorax and I could breathe again, I started to cry, and crying became wailing. I didn't want to die. I was in pain. I didn't want to leave my baby, who needed her mama. I wished I had listened to my dad and joined the Air Force instead of the Marines. I didn't want to be in this horrible country with its horrible food where people kept stepping on me and shooting at me. I was sick of being shot and blown up. And I needed pain meds. Somehow, inexplicably, giving me pain meds always diminished the wailing and screaming.

We can feel the tension building. We're trying to keep up troop morale, but we keep getting injured, which then really beats on the morale of the medical staff. You can sometimes feel their agitation. There are rumors of more car bombs tomorrow. The smoke machines and Saving Private Ryan soundtrack that come on every time Jazeeris blow up cars make it even harder for them to come rescue us. By tomorrow, we might all reach our saturation point.

We hear word of political debates on whether or not we should still be in Fort Indiantown Gap, Jazeeristan, Pennsylvania. The public is suspicious that we always seem to think going to war is worthwhile when there are penutbutter cups involved. I don't know enough about the big picture to say yes or no. On one hand, a shortage in peanutbutter cups and subsequent spike in peanutbutter cup prices would send our economy into a vicious spiral. And it's really a peacekeeping mission. On the other hand, despite our best intentions, it's not even always clear they want us here.

Tomorrow should be very telling.

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