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By Spc. Kiyoshi Freeman
123rd Mobile Public Affairs Detachment
JOINT BASE BALAD, Iraq – A short covered walkway connects the helicopter landing pad with the building. Overhead, a huge, billowing American flag loops in and out of a metal framework, just below the canopy. There are only two ways to see it: if you're looking up at it or if you're being carried in.
This is Hero's Highway, and if a wounded service member is brought to the Air Force Theater Hospital, it's the first thing he or she might see as they are brought inside.
According to Air Force Maj. Deedra Zabokrtsky, a registered nurse and the officer in charge of ward nurses, patients who make it to Balad have a 98 percent survival rate, which she says is a well-known and comforting fact to wounded service members.
"There are people who are alive today because of what we're able to do for them here," says Maj. Hans Bakken, a doctor with the 207th Medical Detachment and a Decorah, Iowa, native.
One of only two neurosurgeons in Iraq, Bakken has played a significant part in saving the lives of service members, specializing in severe head trauma, one of the most common types of injuries in theater.
Bakken, who is on his second voluntary deployment, says, "I think that the Soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines that are over here fighting deserve the best possible health care. I came in from the civilian sector, and that's why I wanted to come to Iraq ... I felt like I could make a difference."
Bakken says his number of patients has decreased to a fraction of what it had been during his last deployment in 2005, which had also been spent at Balad. He said this is partly due to Iraq's improving security situation and partly to ever-evolving tactical doctrines adopted by the armed forces.
"One of the things we document when they arrive in is what kind of protection were they wearing," Zabokrtsky says.
The results from these questions, reports and after action reviews have led to improved armor and protective gear, she says, which only further increases a patient's survivability.
"It's the training for the folks on the frontline that's making a lot of the difference," Zabokrtysky says.
Combat lifesaver training, individual first aid kids – everything comes together out in the field to save lives, she says.
Bakken says it's this level of care – the fact that medics and combat lifesavers are stabilizing patients out in the field, often under combat conditions – that is the most amazing.
"It works better than anything I've ever seen in the civilian world," he says.
This level of care continues when patients arrive at the hospital.
From the moment a helicopters lands, it takes only minutes elapse before a patient is prepped for the operating table, Bakken says.
According to Bakken, in the civilian sector, the use of an operating room could cost approximately $5,000 to $10,000, regardless of the medical procedure being performed. An overnight stay in an intensive care unit would cost another $2,000.
At Joint Base Balad, however, cost is never a consideration for warrior care.
"One thing I like about the military is we don't really think about the financial aspect of what we do," Bakken says. "We get to do things that we think should be done, and not what a hospital administrator says."
Even working in joint environments with other services and new people, Bakken says everyone he has worked with has been outstanding; everyone shares the same overwhelming commitment to provide the best possible health care for wounded service members.
"I'm convinced that the warrior care we provide here is as good as it can possibly be," Bakken says. "If I were injured, this is the place I'd want to be."
Outside, the vacant landing pad is about to receive a visitor.
The doctors, nurses, physicians' assistants and medical technicians prepare to go back to work.
The steady thump-thump-thump of a UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter announces the arrival of more patients, more heroes for the Highway.
| Date Taken: | 11.24.2008 |
| Date Posted: | 11.24.2008 02:26 |
| Story ID: | 26699 |
| Location: | BALAD, IQ |
| Web Views: | 313 |
| Downloads: | 269 |
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