Casualty Ward: U.S. Medical Center Handles Thousands of Trauma Cases From Iraq War
excerpted from Aug. 8, 2004 | ABCNEWS.com
by Mike Lee
L A N D S T U H L, Germany, — It looks like that opening scene from the TV comedy M*A*S*H. But Hawkeye and Pierce, Radar, and Clinger don’t exist here.
These are real doctors and nurses at the Landstuhl Medical Center in Germany, facing horrors seldom seen by the American public — already over 12,000 battlefield casualties from Iraq.
Their patients speak with tension in their faces. Not even the pain killers can stop all of the throbbing of their injuries. I am amazed that they want to talk about what happened.
“Some shrapnel went through my eye,” says Staff Sgt. Daniel Beaty.
Another injured soldier, Cpl. Jeff Swaser says: “The shrapnel came in through my side, punctured my lungs, fractured a couple of my ribs, and broke up into little pieces and put holes into various organs.” ….
“You walk in and your see young kids blown apart,” says Col. Bernie Roth, who works in the intensive care unit. “Sometimes half their brain is gone, arms gone, legs gone. It’s hard, it’s really hard.”
The rest is at ABCnews.com.
