Roadside bombs have devastated troops and doctors who treat them

[JoFerret]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44839-2004Apr26.html

BAGHDAD -- The soldiers were lifted into the helicopters under a moonless sky, their bandaged heads grossly swollen by trauma, their forms silhouetted by the glow from the row of medical monitors laid out across their bodies, from ankle to neck.

An orange screen atop the feet registered blood pressure and heart rate. The blue screen at the knees announced the level of postoperative pressure on the brain. On the stomach, a small gray readout recorded the level of medicine pumping into the body. And the slender plastic box atop the chest signaled that a respirator still breathed for the lungs under it.

At the door to the busiest hospital in Iraq, a wiry doctor bent over the worst-looking case, an Army gunner with coarse stitches holding his scalp together and a bolt protruding from the top of his head. Lt. Col. Jeff Poffenbarger checked a number on the blue screen, announced it dangerously high and quickly pushed a clear liquid through a syringe into the gunner's bloodstream. The number fell like a rock.

"We're just preparing for something a brain-injured person should not do two days out, which is travel to Germany," the neurologist said. He smiled grimly and started toward the UH-60 Black Hawk thwump-thwumping out on the helipad, waiting to spirit out of Iraq one more of the hundreds of Americans wounded here this month.

While attention remains riveted on the rising count of Americans killed in action -- more than 100 so far in April -- doctors at the main combat support hospital in Iraq are reeling from a stream of young soldiers with wounds so devastating that they probably would have been fatal in any previous war.

More and more in Iraq, combat surgeons say, the wounds involve severe damage to the head and eyes -- injuries that leave soldiers brain damaged or blind, or both, and the doctors who see them first struggling against despair.
<much more>

[Mari333]

1. I am crying so hard

Bush did this to those kids. Every one of them.
and hes at a 1 million dollar fund raiser.
God help me, I can hardly contain my anger.

[this_side_up]

5. My feelings exactly, Mari

I was so past anger this morning, I don't know what it
was.

All of the dead and maimed for life (both countries)
all for oil - Republican oil.

May God damn everyone and their families who knew this war was
bullshit lies.

May God damn everyone and their families who are profiting from
this illegal war.


I am not particularly religious but I pray for
your Michael and everyone else other there.

But not the evildoers.

[CharlieBakerAble]

6. I know how you feel

LBJ and his cronies sent my only Uncle to die in SE Asia.
I have never forgiven him and those that started that war.

[m-jean03]

2. Does this imply what I think it does?

Up to 40-50% of wounded are as good as dead, i.e. will never wake up?? ?? They say that these cases are "included" in the figure, but I want to know how many, damn it.

"Accurate statistics are not yet available on recovery from this new round of battlefield brain injuries, an obstacle that frustrates combat surgeons. But judging by medical literature and surgeons' experience with their own patients "three or four months from now 50 to 60 percent will be functional and doing things," said Maj. Richard Gullick.

"Functional," he said, means "up and around, but with pretty significant disabilities," including paralysis.

"The remaining 40 percent to 50 percent of patients include those whom the surgeons send to Europe, and on to the United States, with no prospect of regaining consciousness. The practice, subject to review after gathering feedback from families, assumes that loved ones will find value in holding the soldier's hand before confronting the decision to remove life support. "

Absolutely disgusting

[Mari333]

3. Those are someone children, and this war is sanitized

every one of them was a baby in his or her mothers arms. Every one of the Iraqi civilians dead and wounded was a baby in their mothers arms.
God damn the Bush admin to hell for this.
God damn them all.

[m-jean03]

22. Mari .

Your posts never fail to break my heart -

You are affecting more people than you'd think . :hug:

[demconfive]

7. Keep in mind....

...I don't think these dead are not counted in the official tally.The real toll can only be imagined.

[m-jean03]

15. OK, I realize now that

this percentage refers to the percentage of brain injuries. It still seems like we'll never know the real total #of those who come home brain-dead.

[dArKeR]

4. Thank Bob Wooward. He's the Bush Crime Family Point Man before the

war.

Larry King Live: 'There are double the weapons of mass destruction the pResident has alluded to. That is the rule not the exception.' (paraphrase) Which I personally heard Woodward say.


[e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail] [e-mail]+++, [e-mail]

[burrowowl]

8. Many are sent to the States

so that the family can hold their hand before they are taken off life support.
Are they counted in the KIA, or the dead?
How many of you have seen 'Johnny got his Gun'? Bu$h should be forced to see it. Although I guess it wouldn't do any good.

[BeHereNow]

9. Bush does not give a damn-

This is BUSINESS damnit!
Production unit losses are to be expected
in the pursuit of profits.
No room for emotionality in corporate processes and pursuits!
SARCASM OFF-
BHN

[saigon68]

13. it wouldn't do any good

he is an evil troll of a human being--- and sometimes I wonder about that---more simian than human

[JoFerret]

14. Simians are not evil

Bush is.

[saigon68]

23. My point entirely

I wouldn't trash a whole branch of God's animal family, because one human looks like it belongs in that branch of the family tree

[Just Me]

20. It was previously posted they are not counted as KIA,...

Geez, 40% to 50% come back without the capacity to function!!! How many is that? What kind of life,...is that?

:cry:

[pfitz59]

10. "Johnny Got His Gun" - Dalton Trumbo

http://www.emory.edu/ENGLISH/LostPoets/Casualties-note.html Must read on the subject of the wounded. Suggest AL DUers read it....and weep!

[OneBlueSky]

11. and the people conducting this war are all chickenhawks . . .

who never had the balls to experience combat themselves . . . they DO seem to have the balls to send other people's sons, daughters, sisters, brothers, mothers, and fathers into the hellhole of this war, which is something I find thoroughly disgusting and morally reprehensible . . . if there is a hell, there's a special place reserved for the Bushes, Cheneys, Rumsfields, et.al. of this world . . .

on edit: I think it's time for Kerry to start calling these people what they are: chickenhawks . . . it'll send the right wing into a fury, but it's truthful and accurate, and they know it . . . and so do the American people (those who aren't sheeple, anyhow) . . .

[Snazzy]

12. tough article

"We're saving more people than should be saved, probably," Lt. Col. Robert Carroll said. "We're saving severely injured people. Legs. Eyes. Part of the brain."

...

"See all that dark stuff? That's dead brain," he said. "That ain't gonna regenerate. And that's not uncommon. That's really not uncommon. We do craniotomies on average, lately, of one a day."

"We can save you," the surgeon said. "You might not be what you were."

---------

That appx 3,500 wounded number--is such bs to begin with, but the condition of our wounded is apparently devastating. Armor good enough to keep you alive with surgeons saying you'd be better off dead. We'll all be living with this for a long time--when will that sink in?

[Dhalgren]

16. Also, it gives a realistic US KIA count at

close to 2500! Even if these soldiers were volunteers, this is murder - plain and simple. These soldiers volunteered to protect the constitution; they have to place their trust in their leadership to direct them in an honest and lawful manner; this has not been the case. Even if these kids are stupid or brainwashed and want to be over there murdering Iraqis, the real blame for the murder of both Iraqis and US soldiers must be laid at the webbed feet of that gimpy little cretin from Texas. I can only pray that the nasty, misbegotten little son of a bitch rots in prison for his crimes!

[BabsSong]

17. We prefer to do media "pieces" on guys missing an arm or a leg and

who are telling us how much they support the President and want to go back into combat and "finish the job". Hitler would have loved to have the type of propaganda coverage we are treated to in the good old US of A. If the people knew the truth they might start doubting everying....and then they might not go out and shop.

[Mari333]

18. People prefer denial also

I was at the store last week, and someone asked me how I was doing. I said, crappy. My stepson is in Baghdad and I know he saw 22 people killed and 92 wounded and mortar rounds came down on where he is.
The woman looked at me and said "How do you know these things??!!"
If it doesnt bother them in real life, they prefer denial of it.
add the blacked out media to all that denial.
They turn the channel, because it isnt their kid.

[ninkasi]

24. Mari, what I can't understand...

is the lack of outrage by so many people. All of the dead, all of the wounded, on both sides are SOMEBODY'S kid. They don't have to be mine to feel outrage, and grief, at what is happening.

I think what really, really bothers me, too, is that there are some people so devoid of decency that they will vote for this evil man because he promises to cut their taxes. All they care about is themselves.

We evolved, as a species, by working together for the common good. With the new breed of Republican, it's every man for himself and fuck everybody else. We are becoming a nation of people who have allowed themselves to be led by the lowest of the low scum.

We have to do everything possible to defeat Bush, and get our troops home before so many more lives are destroyed.

[2Design]

26. those are the same people who cheer when companies fire, lay off

people and their stocks go up.....it is about money....nothing personal.....this is a by product of business as someone said..

I hate war./.....it is so wrong....we have it here in the usa every day on the streets....every night on the news.....there is a killing.... someone murdered....someone dead by a drunk driver......

the va sniper.......a ex military sharpt shooter......many of them come back and just go off the deep end or are homeless or their children are deformed because of agent orange and the government denies it and doesn't give them benefite...

soapbox....outrage.......the administration is such evil doers....and get away with everything.....secret meetings on energy so he doesn't have to show how he help enron....take calif down, and conn. down and how many other states and the country....

testify without oath so that the boy can get away with lying......this is horrible and the press and congress continue to allow it to happen.....clintons privates got more legal mumbo jumbo than these guys and the body bags and lives and families ruined...

#$%$#%$#%@#$%$#

[lebkuchen]

19. We don't see many of those stories in the papers--they're shocking

in the horror the US has brought upon itself and the Iraqi people. After all, what kind of treatment must the local nationals be getting?

I was at a base hospital in Germany the other day and saw one of our Iraqi soldiers being wheeled out for transport, probably going on to Landstuhl for more intensive treatment. Currently, Landstuhl is very crowded, so other army hospitals must take the overflow.

[ElementaryPenguin]

21. Revolting!! I'm sure Dick Cheney is positively heartbroken over this!

MONSTROUS FUCKING BASTARD!!!!!!!!!!!

:puke:
:argh:
:mad:

[cap]

25. i am starting a meditation on peace and compassion...

I am also doing some serious thinking on what needs to become when peace finally comes to the Middle East and what my involvement needs to be. It is the only way I can get through terrible stories like this. There must be some greater good beyond us.

[keithyboy]

27. Get the hell out of Iraq!!!

And stay out!!!
That's the solution.