145th Mobile Pubilc Affairs Detachment

Story by Spc. Anthony Jones

DIYALA, Iraq – An U.S. Army medic with 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division saved the life of a young Iraqi boy after the child received several gunshot wounds from an unknown assailant, Sept. 20.

Spc. Adam O'Krent, Company A, 1st Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment, 3/2 SBCT, a native of Littleton, Colo., provided the care which saved the young child's life.

O'Krent's unit was patrolling near the village of Biwaniyah, north of the Diyala provincial capitol of Baqubah, when they received small arms fire, striking between their Stryker vehicles and ricocheting off a nearby wall, said 2nd Lt. Terrence Nolan, O'Krent's Platoon leader. Since there was no positive identification of a shooter, The Soldiers did not return fire in accordance with standard operating procedures, he added.

O'Krent said he knew the situation was serious when his squad leader, Staff Sgt. David Hill, called for him.

"I knew as soon as the ramp dropped and he called for me something had happened. When he told me to bring my bag, something definitely something had happened," said O'Krent, recalling his first moments out of the vehicle before reaching the child.

He said when he reached the boy; he was laying face down with some bleeding underneath him but no wounds in his back.

"When I rolled him over I saw he was shot in the chest and later I found he was shot in the pelvis," he said.

After the initial check of the boy's wounds, O'Krent's training kicked in and he went to work to save the boys life. "You're not thinking about anything at that point. It's instinctual at that point; you know what to do." O'Krent said.

Once O'Krent stabilized the boy, the Soldiers loaded him into one of the Stryker vehicles. As they were loading the boy, his father arrived on the scene and was hurried into the vehicle with his son.

"From the time the shots went off to the time we evacuated him. I couldn't have been more than ten minutes," said Nolan.

The Soldiers transported wounded boy and his worried father to the Forward Operating Base Warhorse medical center and from there the patient was flown to Joint Base Balad.

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