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In May 2021, Slovenian KFOR Regional Command-East (RC-E) Liaison Monitoring Team (LMT) Kilo-11 was out patrolling their assigned municipalities on what they thought would be an average day. “We were doing our regular patrol, in Gracanica, and wanted to cross through Lapje Selo.” says Slovenian Ground Forces Corporal Mirko Kucinic, the driver of LMT Kilo-11 who is an Information Technology specialist in the Slovenian military outside of deployment. The team found themselves stuck in traffic, as an accident had occurred between a truck driver and a much smaller vehicle. Cpl. Kucinic, a trained combat life saver, initially stayed with the vehicle to let his team leader observe the situation, but was moved to action when his team leader ran back to have him check out the situation.
The truck driver was able to walk away from the accident with no serious injuries, but the driver of the smaller vehicle was still unconscious when Kucinic arrived. “So I smashed open the front side, driver side door, used my knife to cut the seatbelt, and me and my team member tried to get the car seat back so we could… check him out. The car seat was… on electricity and wouldn’t move. So I came around the car, inside, and monitored him to see if there was any bleeding. At first, we didn’t see anything but, about a few times… I saw there was blood coming from his right hand.” Cpl. Kucinic applied combat lifesaving techniques he had learned in the Slovenian Army by first prompting the driver to talk to him once he had gained some consciousness, then by stemming the flow of blood. First responders arrived in an ambulance and evaluated the patient. “When the ambulance arrived… we, the doctors and me and my team member got the driver out of the Audi and onto the stretcher. When I told the doctor to cut his sleeve so she could check, when she cut his sleeve there was an open fracture, bone was sticking out and he was bleeding really heavily.” Cpl. Kucinic moved quickly to stop the bleeding by applying pressure to a point between the armpit and biceps of the driver.
Once the first responders left with their patient, LMT Kilo-11 left the scene to file a special report and continue their daily mission. When asked about his experience switching from being a driver to combat lifesaver, Cpl. Kucinic replied, “It was just like muscle memory, do this, do this, do this, hold that, that, that, that. All of it happened so fast, so I’m just really happy that the Slovenian army gave me a chance to go to the combat lifesaver course so I could help.”
| Date Taken: | 08.02.2021 |
| Date Posted: | 08.03.2021 10:44 |
| Story ID: | 402216 |
| Location: | GRACANICA, ZZ |
| Web Views: | 29 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Slovenian Soldier Applies Combat Lifesaver Training, by SGT Gillian McCreedy, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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