Photo By Staff Sgt. James Hutto | Maj. Cynthia Majerske, 38, Bar Harbor, Maine, 3rd Brigade Combat Team surgeon, checks...... read more read more
By Staff Sgt. Sean Riley
3rd HBCT Public Affairs
FORWARD OPERATING BASE HAMMER, Iraq – Third Brigade Combat Team medical personnel visited an Iraqi Ministry of Defense prosthetic clinic located in the Baghdad Green Zone on Sept. 5. They visited to help 20-year-old Soham Hassan Ka-Naan and 17-year-old Hussein Ahmed overcome their handicaps.
The lives of these two Iraqis were forever changed by insurgents after two separate attacks left them both as amputees.
Soham was 17 when an insurgent rocket attack in Jisr Diyala took her left leg below the knee and her entire right leg to her hip. Just over three years later, she came to the clinic after her case was discovered during a recent 3rd Squadron, 1st Cavalry Regiment humanitarian mission to the city. This was the woman's first visit to the clinic and she and her family are very pleased.
"God bless the American Soldiers," said Khalid Hassan Ka-Naan, Soham's brother who accompanied her during her visit. "We appreciate everything they do for us. My mother prays for you everyday to help her life. We are very grateful for you help."
Soham's right hip and left leg were measured to be fitted with prosthetics. According to the prosthetic clinic advisor, and former U.S. Army civil affairs Soldier, Chris Cummings, her bi-lateral amputation complicates the situation, but he feels confident that with modern prosthetic design tools and methods, she will one day walk unassisted.
"She has a whole world of challenges," said Cummings. "A below knee (amputation) and the other at her hip will require a lot of balance and upper body strength."
Hussien was only a child when an insurgent road-side bomb took one of his legs. His visit to the clinic with his father included an ultra-sound to evaluate his old wound. The ultra-sound will find defects like painful and potentially debilitating bone spurs not detectable to the naked eye.
"He'll do fine," said Cummings during Hussein's evaluation. "We'll get a good fitting (for him)."
Cummings conducted the evaluations of both Soham and Hussein during their first visit to the clinic. Cummings, an Operation Iraq Freedom veteran feels both patients will benefit from the evaluations and looks forward to their follow-up appointments.
"It's always great to see kids," he said. "I stay in this field to help people."
Soham and Hussein are scheduled for future visits to start physical therapy and to be fitted with their new prosthetic limbs.
Maj. Cynthia Majerske, 38, Bar Harbor, Maine, the 3rd HBCT Surgeon, who specializes in physical medicine and rehabilitation, said she accompanied the pair on the visit to assist in their evaluations and to check out the facility.
"I was impressed," Majerske said. "Cummings is there with state of the art equipment to make prosthetics. The staff there is very knowledgeable and caring."
Majerske, and other medical professionals from the 3rd HBCT, contacted the Multi-National Security Transition Command after meeting Hussein and Soham. The Soldiers and their patients were then referred to the prosthetic clinic in the Green Zone.
The prosthetic clinic is an Iraqi Ministry of Defense project to help wounded Iraqi army soldiers, but the Iraqi Surgeon General, Gen. Samire, has taken the project further by extending their services to include Iraqi police and civilian casualties as well.
| Date Taken: | 10.24.2007 |
| Date Posted: | 10.24.2007 11:45 |
| Story ID: | 13271 |
| Location: | FORWARD OPERATING BASE HAMMER, IQ |
| Web Views: | 753 |
| Downloads: | 705 |
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