Photo By Staff Sgt. Emma Scearce | U.S. Army Soldiers, assigned to 10th Combat Aviation Brigade, out of Fort Drum, New...... read more read more
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Northeast Syria – “It’s pitch black, it’s cramped, you have head lights, you’re on your knees, and you can’t talk,” said U.S. Army Capt. Seth Titus. “The most austere place to do phenomenal medicine and interventions is by far in the back of a Blackhawk.”
Titus, a flight nurse attached to 3rd Forward Support Medical Platoon, Charlie Company, 3rd General Support Aviation Battalion, 82nd Combat Aviation Brigade, out of Fort Liberty, North Carolina, was one of the ten crew members who responded to a mass causality (mascal), medical evacuation (medevac) request for the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on the evening of May 10, 2024, in Deir ez-Zor province, Syria.
“It’s a very unique mission compared to the rest of the areas under CENTCOM because we are tasked to help the partner forces who are critical to the Special Forces mission,” said U.S. Army Cpt. Acacia Langlais, the platoon leader and one of Dustoff’s pilots during the event.
According to the SDF press center, a vehicle-born improvised explosive device targeted one of their military posts. Three SDF members lost their lives and several others were wounded preventing the vehicle from entering the post.
SDF transported over 20 casualties to their local medical clinic and brought the 12 most critical ones to the U.S. Army personnel at a base in northeast Syria. Special Forces medics, combat medics, combat lifesaver Soldiers, and a Forward Resuscitative Surgical Team (FRST) received the casualties. The Special Forces medics, under the Combined Special Operations Joint Task Force – Levant, were in charge of the triage site while FRST was in charge of stabilizing patients who needed immediate, life-saving surgical interventions.
U.S. Army Lt. Col. “Doc,” an emergency room doctor assigned to Task Force Savior, who was temporarily assisting the 555th FRST under CSOJTF-L, said the patients arrived about one hour following the attack.
One casualty was immediately brought into surgery after initial assessments, closely followed by a second patient. FRST focused on the two surgical patients while the rest of the interventions were performed by medical personnel at the triage site.
After completing secondary assessments on everyone, Doc determined which patients required a higher level of care and that air medevac was the only way to get them there on time.
While the base’s medical team was already an hour into treatments, at another base, Dustoff’s night was only beginning.
“Before the nine-line even dropped, Joyner was on top of the plan,” said Langlais. “He had a huge impact on the triage.” Nine-line is used in military emergency medical situations, providing a fast and effective way to communicate crucial information about casualties and medical evacuations, ensuring efficient reporting of injured troops.
U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Joyner was the platoon senior enlisted advisor and one of the flight medics who responded to the event. Joyner ensured the teams were ready, aircrafts were prepared, and each team knew which patients they were taking before they left.
“I was super proud of all of them,” said Joyner. “They all did what they’re supposed to do, especially towards the end of the deployment.”
FRST updated Dustoff that five patients were treated and sent to an n SDF clinic, but the remaining six required transport to a Syrian hospital for higher levels of care. Transporting the patients by ambulance would take more than twice as long due to the poor road conditions and security check points. The closer hospital was in Regime-controlled territory, where SDF members could be killed or imprisoned for entering.
While the two were still in surgery, four patients were prepared for medevac and the official nine-line request was sent at 9 p.m. Fifteen minutes later, Dustoff was in the air.
When Dustoff arrived to pick up the first four patients, one of the patients started to decompensate. With the oversight of Doc, the flight medics inserted a chest tube and performed a cricothyroidotomy, an incision made through the cricothyroid membrane to establish an airway. Both interventions are within the scope of practice for a flight medic, who are required to be licensed paramedics.
Once the team was in the air, Titus’ patient went through all of their standard oxygen supply and the crew chief, Sgt. Nathaniel Nelson, manually ventilated the patient with a resuscitation bag for him to breathe. He was familiar with how to use the equipment from the medical training he received from the flight medics.
“It’s not standard for crew chiefs to jump in for medical scenarios,” said Langlais. “If he [Nelson] wasn’t there, the patient would’ve died.”
Chief Warrant Officer 2 Nicholas W. Allen, Langlais’ co-pilot, said Joyner urged the pilots to fly as fast as possible to the hospital drop-off location or the patient would die. “If Joyner says we need to go – he means it.”
The team diligently worked with limited visibility and communication. The only light came from blue-light headlamps, and the communication system required them to push a button to talk. Stopping to push a button is not always feasible while providing continuous care.
“This is his bread and butter.” said Allen. “He [Joyner] efficiently managed the team and saved lives. We are one giant team.”
On the other aircraft, the flight medics treated two patients, one with an open head wound who was originally was classified as expectant when he arrived to the triage site but the medics had been able to stabilize him.
“All patients survived the flight,” said Staff Sgt. Liam Sullivan, a flight medic. “Joyner took on a patient that was super critical and he kept the patient stable the entire 40-minute flight.” The medics are not updated on the status of the patients after they transport them to the hospital.
After delivering the first four patients, they took off again in only 11 minutes. The crew knew a second medevac request was imminent. They landed back at their base long enough to reset the medical supplies, grab additional blood for FRST, and hop back on the aircraft.
“Everyone knows their job, what they need to do and how to execute it,” said Allen. “I’m just the pilot.”
Around midnight, the FRST submitted the next nine-line medevac request for the two remaining surgical patients. Dustoff was up in the air within seven minutes.
“Every time we’ve worked with them has been very seamless,” said the U.S. Army 1st Lieutenant in charge of the FRST. “They’re very professional and know exactly what they need to do.”
The hand-off from the FRST to Dustoff was without complications. The second round of patients were medically stable after the life-saving work that the FRST had done.
Dustoff brought the remaining two patients to the hospital and returned to base. They quietly cleaned out the aircraft and hoped for the best for the patients. Their mission finally concluded around 3 a.m.
“This is exactly what I wanted to do when I became a flight medic,” said Staff Sgt. Liam Mellott, a flight medic. “There are so many different things that are going on at once, it’s a very different environment compared to critical patients I’ve had in the past.”
3rd Forward Support Medical Platoon flew a total of 37 patients on 28 missions during their 6 months in Syria; most of the patients were from the partner force.
(Some names were removed or changed for security purposes)
| Date Taken: | 05.10.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 10.18.2024 13:45 |
| Story ID: | 483440 |
| Location: | SY |
| Web Views: | 955 |
| Downloads: | 3 |
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