Harrytheheid
Banned
- Joined
- Apr 19, 2007
- Messages
- 4,672
I found the following article in the on-line version of "The Scotsman" newspaper and thought it might be of interest in highlighting the dangers faced by both UK and USA troops. Although it is directly related to the present conflict in Afghanistan, it is not political. So I think it's okay to post it here. No matter what our personal points of view might be, there is no doubt whatsoever of the professionalism and dedication to duty of our (UK & US) forces presently deployed in the extremely adverse and dangerous conditions of Afghanistan.
Respects
H
A near death in the unforgiving desert
Scotsman journalist Emma Cowing almost lost her life in the searing heat of Afghanistan. Her ordeal exposed an unwritten danger facing our troops. Here she tells her story;
The ground was stony, uneven. I kept my eyes on the Royal Irish soldier ahead of me and walked carefully in his footsteps, mindful of the high risk of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in the area. The atmosphere among the US Marines, Royal Irish troops and Afghan National policemen was tense.
Around us, wary Afghan eyes watched our progress through the small-town bazaar, the odd child running forward with a smile and a shout of "salaam". Ahead of us, a truck started driving towards our patrol. Soldiers immediately dropped to their knees and aimed their rifles. The truck kept coming and the soldiers – aware of the high suicide bomber threat in the town – readied their weapons. Just before they took aim to shoot, the truck stopped, and the soldiers lowered their guns.
In the 54C heat, encased in my Kevlar body armour and helmet, I was beginning to stagger and sway. I had never felt so hot or disorientated. We reached a halfway safehouse and I fell to the ground, trying to take my helmet off in a desperate attempt to cool down. I remember telling a soldier I couldn't go on, I remember trying desperately to breathe, and then everything went black.
It was the afternoon of Sunday, 6 July and I was out on patrol with the US Marines in Musa Qala in Afghanistan's Helmand province.
The notorious former Taleban stronghold was retaken by British and Afghan forces in December and I had been told that, since then, the situation had improved considerably for those living here. The school – for boys only, although girls were being considered for next year's classes – had reopened. A health clinic had started seeing patients. The once- deserted bazaar was now a busy hotbed of trade.
The US Marines were mentoring the Afghan National Police Force, and Royal Irish troops were mentoring the Afghan National Army.
Meanwhile, the "hearts and minds" operation of the British Army and the Foreign Office was in full swing, with a radio station beaming out positive community messages and a poster campaign radiating anti-Taleban propaganda.
I was desperate to see it, particularly as a high number of Scottish troops – including several companies from both 2 and 5 Scots Battalions – were based in Musa Qala District Centre, the camp next to the town.
Despite the good-news stories, I had heard grumblings of hostility towards British troops in the bazaar and a growing discontent among the townspeople with Mullah Salaam, the coalition forces-installed governor who was a former Taleban commander.
So when the opportunity came to go on a foot patrol through the town and into the bazaar, I said yes.
The Scotsman's photographer, Ian Rutherford, did not have that luxury. Having suffered badly in the intense desert heat, where the temperatures regularly soared past 50C, he had been ruled out of the trip by the camp medic. I, on the other hand, felt OK.
We had been in Helmand eight days at this point and, although I had felt slow and sluggish at points, I thought I had acclimatised well. I was fairly fit, and had worked out with a personal trainer before travelling to Afghanistan. Knowing water was key I drank an average of nine litres a day.
Out on patrol, at first anyway, I was fine. I kept the (admittedly slow) pace of the troops, marvelling at their constant alertness for any trouble, and looked on as some soldiers went to check on a new water construction project for the town. But by the time we hit the bazaar, having walked around 1km in body armour and helmet under that 54C sun, I was suffering from severe heat-stroke. Soon after, I collapsed.
Heatstroke is one of the most common causes of military casualties in Helmand. In the desert surrounding areas such as Musa Qala, it can reach 56C in the heat of the day, and soldiers – many of them carrying at least 50lb of body armour and kit – are at serious risk of injury as a result of being exposed to such temperatures. Fitness is not necessarily a defence, only true acclimatisation, which – according to one officer – often takes the Scottish soldiers out there seven to eight weeks.
What happened to me that day was a unique insight into the treatment a soldier injured in the field by Afghanistan's intense heat receives, and a testament to the highly precise medical evacuation procedures of the British Army.
After I collapsed, I was put in the back of an armoured vehicle and driven back to camp, the soldiers looking after me so concerned about my condition that they bypassed normal rules to check for roadside bombs to get me to safety.
Once in the Musa Qala camp medic tent, my clothes and boots were cut off and I was covered in cooling packs by Captain Cooper, head of the medic team, and hooked up to an IV drip. Meanwhile, as my temperature soared to a life-threatening 43C, a Medical Emergency Response Team (MERT) Chinook was called in from Camp Bastion. These are highly trained medical teams, equipped to deal with any field emergency, from a roadside bomb to a heat-exhaustion victim, in the most hostile of situations.
The Chinook landed and I was driven to the landing pad under the protection of armed soldiers.
It rose into the air and I lay unconscious on a stretcher while the MERT team of Lieutenant-Colonel Duncan Parkhouse, Flight Sergeant Mark White and Flight Nurse Maggie Carter got to work on me amid the noise, dust and heat. A drip was inserted.
And then, somewhere over the Helmand desert, my heart stopped. For three minutes the team worked to resuscitate me, giving me two bouts of CPR as the helicopter clattered on.
Against all the odds, it worked. My heart started, the Chinook landed and the MERT team handed me over to the intensive care unit at Camp Bastion hospital.
I woke up the next morning covered in wires and tubes. The doctors told me that, at one point, I had no blood pressure. I was on a ventilator as I was unable to breathe on my own and, at its worst, my core temperature had been 43C. Reaching 44C, apparently, would have meant instant death. The MERT team, through precision and assurance in intolerable conditions, had saved my life.
As I lay on that bed, breathing shakily through my oxygen mask and listening to these statistics, all I could feel was lucky. I had survived because I had received the best medical treatment in the world, under some of the most extreme conditions on Earth. I felt – and still feel – incredibly humbled by the treatment I received that day, and by the dedication to duty of the people who cared for me.
The army moved heaven and earth to fly me out of Afghanistan that night. I was placed on a Hercules which flew me to Kandahar, where I was stretchered on to an RAF TriStar.
Here, a separate area was created on the plane for me so the medical team could constantly care for me – changing my drips, giving me morphine, and holding up cups of water with straws that I could sip at.
The TriStar landed in Birmingham and I was taken to Selly Oak hospital, where all evacuated British casualties are treated.
Again, the care was exemplary and I was discharged four days later. A welfare team representative came to see if there was anything I needed. I asked for names and addresses. I had a lot of thank-you cards to write.
When I got home to Scotland, I unpacked my kitbag. Inside, placed right on the top, was one boot. There was no sign of the other one. It was covered in dust. There was a spot of blood on the toe. The laces had been cut down to the quick.
I've placed it in a corner of my living room – it is a permanent reminder not just of the fragility of life, but of the professionalism of the British Army and its medical teams as they continue to fight, and save lives, in one of the harshest environments on Earth.
'Every bit as dangerous as the enemy'…heat is the silent killer that keeps claiming more victims
Respects
H
A near death in the unforgiving desert
Scotsman journalist Emma Cowing almost lost her life in the searing heat of Afghanistan. Her ordeal exposed an unwritten danger facing our troops. Here she tells her story;
The ground was stony, uneven. I kept my eyes on the Royal Irish soldier ahead of me and walked carefully in his footsteps, mindful of the high risk of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in the area. The atmosphere among the US Marines, Royal Irish troops and Afghan National policemen was tense.
Around us, wary Afghan eyes watched our progress through the small-town bazaar, the odd child running forward with a smile and a shout of "salaam". Ahead of us, a truck started driving towards our patrol. Soldiers immediately dropped to their knees and aimed their rifles. The truck kept coming and the soldiers – aware of the high suicide bomber threat in the town – readied their weapons. Just before they took aim to shoot, the truck stopped, and the soldiers lowered their guns.
In the 54C heat, encased in my Kevlar body armour and helmet, I was beginning to stagger and sway. I had never felt so hot or disorientated. We reached a halfway safehouse and I fell to the ground, trying to take my helmet off in a desperate attempt to cool down. I remember telling a soldier I couldn't go on, I remember trying desperately to breathe, and then everything went black.
It was the afternoon of Sunday, 6 July and I was out on patrol with the US Marines in Musa Qala in Afghanistan's Helmand province.
The notorious former Taleban stronghold was retaken by British and Afghan forces in December and I had been told that, since then, the situation had improved considerably for those living here. The school – for boys only, although girls were being considered for next year's classes – had reopened. A health clinic had started seeing patients. The once- deserted bazaar was now a busy hotbed of trade.
The US Marines were mentoring the Afghan National Police Force, and Royal Irish troops were mentoring the Afghan National Army.
Meanwhile, the "hearts and minds" operation of the British Army and the Foreign Office was in full swing, with a radio station beaming out positive community messages and a poster campaign radiating anti-Taleban propaganda.
I was desperate to see it, particularly as a high number of Scottish troops – including several companies from both 2 and 5 Scots Battalions – were based in Musa Qala District Centre, the camp next to the town.
Despite the good-news stories, I had heard grumblings of hostility towards British troops in the bazaar and a growing discontent among the townspeople with Mullah Salaam, the coalition forces-installed governor who was a former Taleban commander.
So when the opportunity came to go on a foot patrol through the town and into the bazaar, I said yes.
The Scotsman's photographer, Ian Rutherford, did not have that luxury. Having suffered badly in the intense desert heat, where the temperatures regularly soared past 50C, he had been ruled out of the trip by the camp medic. I, on the other hand, felt OK.
We had been in Helmand eight days at this point and, although I had felt slow and sluggish at points, I thought I had acclimatised well. I was fairly fit, and had worked out with a personal trainer before travelling to Afghanistan. Knowing water was key I drank an average of nine litres a day.
Out on patrol, at first anyway, I was fine. I kept the (admittedly slow) pace of the troops, marvelling at their constant alertness for any trouble, and looked on as some soldiers went to check on a new water construction project for the town. But by the time we hit the bazaar, having walked around 1km in body armour and helmet under that 54C sun, I was suffering from severe heat-stroke. Soon after, I collapsed.
Heatstroke is one of the most common causes of military casualties in Helmand. In the desert surrounding areas such as Musa Qala, it can reach 56C in the heat of the day, and soldiers – many of them carrying at least 50lb of body armour and kit – are at serious risk of injury as a result of being exposed to such temperatures. Fitness is not necessarily a defence, only true acclimatisation, which – according to one officer – often takes the Scottish soldiers out there seven to eight weeks.
What happened to me that day was a unique insight into the treatment a soldier injured in the field by Afghanistan's intense heat receives, and a testament to the highly precise medical evacuation procedures of the British Army.
After I collapsed, I was put in the back of an armoured vehicle and driven back to camp, the soldiers looking after me so concerned about my condition that they bypassed normal rules to check for roadside bombs to get me to safety.
Once in the Musa Qala camp medic tent, my clothes and boots were cut off and I was covered in cooling packs by Captain Cooper, head of the medic team, and hooked up to an IV drip. Meanwhile, as my temperature soared to a life-threatening 43C, a Medical Emergency Response Team (MERT) Chinook was called in from Camp Bastion. These are highly trained medical teams, equipped to deal with any field emergency, from a roadside bomb to a heat-exhaustion victim, in the most hostile of situations.
The Chinook landed and I was driven to the landing pad under the protection of armed soldiers.
It rose into the air and I lay unconscious on a stretcher while the MERT team of Lieutenant-Colonel Duncan Parkhouse, Flight Sergeant Mark White and Flight Nurse Maggie Carter got to work on me amid the noise, dust and heat. A drip was inserted.
And then, somewhere over the Helmand desert, my heart stopped. For three minutes the team worked to resuscitate me, giving me two bouts of CPR as the helicopter clattered on.
Against all the odds, it worked. My heart started, the Chinook landed and the MERT team handed me over to the intensive care unit at Camp Bastion hospital.
I woke up the next morning covered in wires and tubes. The doctors told me that, at one point, I had no blood pressure. I was on a ventilator as I was unable to breathe on my own and, at its worst, my core temperature had been 43C. Reaching 44C, apparently, would have meant instant death. The MERT team, through precision and assurance in intolerable conditions, had saved my life.
As I lay on that bed, breathing shakily through my oxygen mask and listening to these statistics, all I could feel was lucky. I had survived because I had received the best medical treatment in the world, under some of the most extreme conditions on Earth. I felt – and still feel – incredibly humbled by the treatment I received that day, and by the dedication to duty of the people who cared for me.
The army moved heaven and earth to fly me out of Afghanistan that night. I was placed on a Hercules which flew me to Kandahar, where I was stretchered on to an RAF TriStar.
Here, a separate area was created on the plane for me so the medical team could constantly care for me – changing my drips, giving me morphine, and holding up cups of water with straws that I could sip at.
The TriStar landed in Birmingham and I was taken to Selly Oak hospital, where all evacuated British casualties are treated.
Again, the care was exemplary and I was discharged four days later. A welfare team representative came to see if there was anything I needed. I asked for names and addresses. I had a lot of thank-you cards to write.
When I got home to Scotland, I unpacked my kitbag. Inside, placed right on the top, was one boot. There was no sign of the other one. It was covered in dust. There was a spot of blood on the toe. The laces had been cut down to the quick.
I've placed it in a corner of my living room – it is a permanent reminder not just of the fragility of life, but of the professionalism of the British Army and its medical teams as they continue to fight, and save lives, in one of the harshest environments on Earth.
'Every bit as dangerous as the enemy'…heat is the silent killer that keeps claiming more victims
