Life and death on the M*A*S*H shift

[Marcus Marulus]

Life and death on the M*A*S*H shift

Declan Walsh in Helmand, Afghanistan
Monday April 16, 2007
The Guardian


Private Craig Fisher, a British soldier, is taken for treatment by the medical team in Helmand after being attacked by Taliban fighters. Photograph: Declan Walsh

Captain Nick Walker, an army doctor, and three other medics were nearing the end of their 24-hour shift in Afghanistan's Helmand province early last Friday morning. It had been moderately busy. The night before, the team - this war's mobile equivalent of Korea's M*A*S*H - rescued two US soldiers injured when their vehicle hit a landmine near Sangin, the remote narco-hub that Nato snatched from the Taliban two weeks ago. Afterwards they watched a Hollywood movie. But 50 minutes before they were due to knock off, the red phone on their desk rang. Three British casualties, the voice reported, one of them "T1" - in imminent danger.
Fifteen minutes later the medics were in a Chinook helicopter, its nose tilted forward as it skimmed over the swollen river Helmand, mud-walled compounds and fields of red poppies. It flew low and hard, banking and curling to avoid enemy fire. It banged to earth on a field just outside Naw Zad, a small village where Britain established a platoon house last summer.
Dust swept through the cabin and a small team of marine commandos leapt out to form a protective ring around the helicopter. White mortar smoke drifted in the distance. Corporal Kevin Mills, an RAF paramedic, readied his bag of syringes and medicine, then trained his rifle on the horizon.
Private Chris Gray, 19, arrived on an armoured truck. A Taliban bullet had hit him in the chest and his heart had stopped beating. The medics got to work immediately; one pumping the heart, another administering drugs while a third drained his chest wound. The chopper lifted and the yellow haze of Helmand blurred past again. Streaming with sweat in the cramped cabin, they took turns to pump his heart. The marine commandos watched anxiously. One helped to hold a drip aloft. Sergeant Kevin Scrafton ripped off his flak jacket.
At the base, Camp Bastion, Pte Gray underwent emergency surgery. But it was too late. Moments later he was dead. He suffered little, doctors said. "He was unconscious throughout his treatment and did not suffer," they said.
Armed with cutting-edge medical technology and SA-80 rifles, British military medics are on call to fly into some of Afghanistan's hotspots.
Officers pride themselves on offering some of the most sophisticated emergency care in the world - better, they like to claim, than the NHS. The service, they say, is non-discriminating. They treat British soldiers, American allies and Afghan children. They even treat the Taliban.
Pte Gray was the eighth British soldier to die in combat in Helmand this year. Nato's sweep into the Taliban heartland, in the Sangin valley, has led to the death of at least six coalition soldiers. It's also been a busy time in the Helmand emergency room. The medical emergency response team, or MERT as it is properly known, boasts cutting-edge technology. Doctors include a raft of consultants. A Dutch-run blood bank next door freezes blood products at minus -80C (-112F).
"We are pushing the boundaries," said Colonel Tim Hodgetts, the defence professor of emergency medicine. "History proves that medicine advances leaps and bounds during conflict."
The slick operation is partly a product of the post 9/11 world. "To be honest in campaigns such as Bosnia we didn't have much to do. But here it's full on," said Capt Walker.
The medics see the worst of war, yet remain phlegmatic. If anything surprises them, it is the inexplicable chance they term "God's dice". "You are in a room and one person gets blown up, the other has a scratch. That's just the way it is," said Surgeon Commander Steve Bree.
A little black humour also helps. As he injected the painkiller ketamine into Christopher Vance, a wounded American soldier who lost part of two fingers, on Saturday night, Col Hodgetts told him to enjoy it. "People pay good money for this on the streets," he said.
Afghans have also been treated, including civilians who have been shot, children burned in domestic fires, and wounded Afghan national army (ANA) soldiers.
Then there is the enemy. Last Tuesday "Terry", as he has been called, who is with the Taliban, was sent by American forces. On Saturday he was in the intensive care unit. Across the corridor, a British soldier with a bandaged arm was propped up in bed. Corporal Billy Moore, 30, led Private Gray into battle last Friday. The soldier went down fighting, he said.
They had been on a clearance patrol when suddenly a group of armed men emerged from behind a wall. Cpl Moore and Pte Gray opened fire. Four Taliban fell. When Pte Gray was shot, Cpl Moore stood covered him while other soldiers dragged him to safety. Apaches hovered and F-15 fighters screamed past. Then Cpl Moore was shot in the arm. The other injured soldier, Private Craig Fisher, 21, was shot in the leg. "I heard the crack of rounds overhead, then I took cover in a ditch." They are expected to make a full recovery. For 30-year-old Cpl Moore, even amid the tragedy the greater mission in Afghanistan is not his concern; he was just a soldier doing his job. "We just do the dirty job on the bottom," he said with a smile.

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