Photo By Luis Delgadillo | Spc. Ian C. Loud, from Hanford, Calif., a combat medic with Battery B, 1st Battalion,...... read more read more
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By Sgt. Luis Delgadillo
2nd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division
FORWARD OPERATING BASE KALSU, Iraq - In rural Iraqi farming communities such as Maderiyah, even the most routine of injuries can become crippling if not treated properly.
Such could have been the case for one Iraqi boy who fell off his bicycle and broke his arm, if not for the intervention of Soldiers from Battery B, 1st Battalion 9th Field Artillery, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division.
A member of the Sons of Iraq related to the boy, informed Soldiers of his injury, March 29, as they conducted an SoI checkpoint-monitoring patrol east of Joint Security Site W-1.
"We drove down to his house and as it turned out he had just broken his arm," said 1st Lt. Andrew Gibbons, a platoon leader with Battery B.
Gibbons, a native of McLean, Va., said the boy received treatment at a nearby clinic but when Staff Sgt. Justin G. Saunto, the battery's senior combat medic, inspected the splint he concluded the boy's arm, which was broken in two places, needed more than just a splint.
"They used a finger-splint as an arm splint, which doesn't really work," said Saunto, from Haslet, Mich. "I undressed it to look at it and noticed his humerus (upper arm bone) and his radius and ulna (forearm) were possibly broken."
He re-splinted the boy's fractured arm while Gibbons conferred with Battery B Commander Capt. Richard Aaron.
"He needed a cast, otherwise he would not have been able to use his arm for the rest of his life," Saunto said.
The boy's family told Gibbons that they would take him to an Iraqi medical facility in Fallujah.
With the recent rise on violence in Baghdad, Gibbons knew the curfew, imposed by the
government of Iraq, would make it dangerous for travel.
On eerily quiet roads, Gibbons, Saunto and the rest of the Soldiers of 2nd Platoon escorted the family, driving north to the intersection of two of Baghdad's busiest highways commonly referred to as 'the mixing bowl.'
Three days later the family returned to their farmhouse safely, the boy's arm wound tightly in a fresh plaster cast.
During a recent visit, medics of the battery found the family in good spirits and checked the boy's plaster cast, making minor adjustments to his sling.
Soldiers reassured the family of their willingness to help them with any further complication.
As coalition forces work to rid Maderiyah and its neighboring communities of al-Qaida insurgents they simultaneously earn the confidence of the residents.
| Date Taken: | 04.02.2008 |
| Date Posted: | 04.03.2008 08:50 |
| Story ID: | 18022 |
| Location: | ISKANDARIYAH, IQ |
| Web Views: | 113 |
| Downloads: | 83 |
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