Courtesy Photo | A Black Hawk helicopter lands to medically evacuate survivors from a bus that hit an...... read more read more
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PATROL BASE DEH MEZONG, Afghanistan - Patrol Base Deh Mezong, in the district of Khash Rud, became a mass casualty triage and treatment facility after a bus full of Afghan civilians struck an improvised explosive device June 30th.
Afghan Medics worked hand in hand with U.S. Navy medical providers to treat the steady stream of injured civilians delivered to the base.
A convoy from the Afghan National Army, the 6th Kandak, 2nd Brigade, 215th Corps, was driving on Route 606 when they struck an IED. A bus, traveling the other direction, attempted to drive around the stopped convoy. Afghan soldiers signaled the bus to stop but it continued on triggering another IED.
A quick reaction force of ANA and Marine vehicles, the Marines are part of an advisor team partnered with the 6th Kandak, was dispatched to the scene of the accident once word came back from the convoy.
ANA ambulances and pickup trucks began returning from the bus with the injured moments before the quick reaction force left the small patrol base.
“I didn’t know whether there would be more casualties on the site with the bus or more casualties that had been brought to us,” said Capt. Richard Porter, commander of the 6th Kandak Advisor Team, referring to his decision to split up his medical providers.
“As it turned out, more casualties had already been brought to us, so it was all up to an ANA medic, one corpsman, and a bunch of Afghan soldiers and Marines to triage, treat and evacuate [the wounded] to the landing zone.”
Yar Mohammed Shinwary, the ANA 6th Kandak commander, stayed at the scene and led the effort to rescue as many survivors as possible, loading them into his trucks after the ambulances were full. He returned to the base with the second wave of casualties.
The two commanders worked with what they had to save as many lives as possible. The Afghan commander worked to pull survivors from the bus while the Marine commander led the triage efforts at the base.
“The ANA medic was working on the people who were injured while the U.S. Navy corpsman was triaging and treating as he could,” said Porter, describing the patrol base triage facility. “The ANA soldiers were good about moving people around on stretchers. They were moving quick, getting everyone moved to where they needed to be. The ANA non-commissioned officers were keeping people out who didn’t need to be there.”
ANA soldiers sprinted from the triage tents to an open field to secure a landing zone for the medical evacuation flights. U.S. Army Blackhawk helicopters, from nearby “Dustoff” units on Camp Bastion and Forward Operating Base Delaram II, arrived evacuating seven critically wounded civilians with the first flight.
“After we loaded up the first flight, we put seven urgent casualties into it and they took off. Then the second flight started to come in, and we had three that were going to go on to it. One of them died. CPR was ineffective.”
Porter reflected that his Marines would not have been able to complete the rescue by themselves.
“If it hadn’t been for [the ANA], we wouldn’t have been able to get the injured up to the triage center because they had ambulances and we didn’t. They also provided enough muscle for us to move all of the injured. They had more stretcher bearers than we did, and they provided the bulk of the security.”
13 bus passengers died from the initial blast and more than 10 were wounded and treated by Afghan National Security Forces.
| Date Taken: | 07.02.2011 |
| Date Posted: | 07.02.2011 06:25 |
| Story ID: | 73143 |
| Location: | FORWARD OPERATING BASE DELARAM II, NIMRUZ PROVINCE, ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF, AF |
| Web Views: | 611 |
| Downloads: | 9 |
This work, Afghan soldiers and Marines rescue bus survivors, by MAJ Timothy Irish, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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