Airmen airlift injured Afghan children

  • Published
  • By Master Sgt. Jeff Bohn
  • U.S. Central Air Forces-Forward Public Affairs
Eighteen Afghans were emergency airlifted to an American medical facility after two improvised explosive devices detonated shortly after 8 a.m. in Kandahar on Jan. 6.

More than 45 Afghans were killed or injured in the explosions.

Coalition forces used U.S. Air Force HC-130 aircraft on alert from Karshi-Khanabad Air Base, Uzbekistan, to rapidly transport the most severely injured from the medical facilities at the coalition air base at Kandahar to a field hospital in Bagram Air Base for advanced life-support care. Twelve of the evacuees were children.

The life-saving flights were the result of rapid planning and coordination between Combined Joint Task Force-180 forces at Kandahar and Bagram, and the Combined Air Operations Center, officials said. Putting air support and pararescue teams where they were needed most was a key to the operation’s success, said Lt. Col. John Nelson, joint search-and-rescue center director here.

“This was an outstanding example of interoperability among various divisions within the CAOC and the forces on the ground in Afghanistan and Uzbekistan,” said Navy Lt. Cmdr. Ian Hendricks, theater joint patient movement requirements center director here. “It resulted in a successful operation and led to getting the critically injured Afghan children to definitive medical care.”

The CAOC is staffed by more than 800 airpower specialists from six coalition nations. Its mission is to provide coalition air support in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Horn of Africa.