Airmen help injured soldier

  • Published
  • By Army Cpl. Keith Kluwe
  • 109th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment
OPERATION ENDURING FREEDOM (AFPN) --  Airmen recently helped a seriously injured soldier who was wounded in an ambush in southern Afghanistan.

The same ambush killed two servicemembers. Army Sgt. Orlando Morales, 33, a native of Manati, Puerto Rico, and Air National Guard Staff Sgt. Jacob L. Frazier, 24, of St. Charles, Ill., were the first combat casualties in Afghanistan since December.

The seriously wounded soldier, who for security reasons is referred to as Tom, received care from several medical team members at Kandahar Air Field, Afghanistan.

Tom was shot on his right side, destroying one of his kidneys, perforating his diaphragm and puncturing his lung. Another round went through his right hand and another round grazed his head. He was also cut over his left eye.

The forward surgical team removed his damaged organ and closed the hole in his diaphragm and lung. They operated on his hand and closed the wounds he had above his eye and on the side of his head.

Once his surgery was done, it was the job of the Critical Care Aeromedical Transport Team to move Tom to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany.

Capt. Russel Frantz, officer in charge of aeromedical operations at Kandahar Air Field, and his crew were responsible for putting Tom in the air evacuation system to coordinate his movement.

"Some people on the medical side tend to distance themselves from their patient because it helps them focus on the injuries," Frantz said. "I didn't know (Tom) but it still hit home because he is one of our own."

Frantz also was thinking about Tom on a different level. They are both husbands and fathers.

"To me, my family is everything," said Frantz. "I imagine his family is everything to him too. He is very fortunate to have a second chance."

"We're here to do one job: take care of patients the best we can and get them from Point A to Point B hopefully in the same or better condition than we got them," he said.

Lt. Col. Wendy Tomczak, senior clinical adviser in the Operation Enduring Freedom theater, was an Army nurse in Vietnam and an Air Force nurse in the Gulf War.

"Tom was the first American casualty I've moved since Vietnam," Tomczak said. "It was a mixture of feelings for me. There is the officer and the nurse in me, who treated a young man (who) was badly hurt and (who) was very touch and go.

"The other part is the mom, thinking Tom is two years older than my son," she said. "It has made for complicated feelings looking at it from two different angles at the same time. I think if he would have been my son, I would have been so grateful that he survived the ambush and that there were skilled enough people there to help him survive. I would have been proud at the same time, proud that he elected to serve his country."

Staff Sgt. Larry Minor is the youngest member of the team and was Tom's cardiopulmonary technician on his flight from Afghanistan to Germany. He monitored Tom's breathing and the drainage from the chest tube in the left side of Tom's chest.

"It feels good to actually do the job we have been training for," said Minor.

His team has moved injured Afghans in the past, but this was his first combat casualty mission.

"That's why I'm here, to help that one guy survive," said Minor. "I'm glad he is alive, that his family didn't get that phone call or that visit."