Death, Again

This was the post that I hoped to not write.

Today was the first mass casualty in many weeks. We were packing and preparing for departure when the knocks came on our doors. SEALs had radioed from a village that there had been an IED incident involving civilians. We assembled in the FST building to assist the new team.

Teams integrate to accept multiple patients

Six patients arrived: four adults, one boy of about 13 years old, and a newborn.

Brandi and Aric prepare the infant for MEDEVAC

The boy was the most seriously injured. He had no pulse and chest compressions were in progress. Ted and Paul joined the other surgeons to enter the boy's chest via a thoracotomy, one of the most radical resuscitation maneuvers that we perform. He needed blood delivered directly to the heart and manual compression of the heart.

Our team's surgeons assist the new team's surgeons in caring for the boy.

The team struggled to keep him alive with drugs and defibrillation shocks. There was a period when we thought that we had successfully restored his pulse and blood pressure but the boy's condition suddenly deteriorated and he died in the resuscitation bay.

Litters loaded into ambulance.

Another child's death was not the departing scene that anyone wanted. The war pauses for no one.