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Global News Portfolio: Casualties of War: Doctors of War

  • Nurses unload Lance Corporal Matthew Schilling with the 3rd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment, from a medical evacuation Black Hawk helicopter after it landed at the helipad of the Air Force Theater Hospital operated by the 332nd Expeditionary Medical Group on the Balad Air Base in central Iraq.
  • A wounded soldier and fellow Marine sent as care taker rush to the emergency room of the Air Force Theater Hospital in Balad, Iraq on August 27, 2005.
  • A wounded soldier is wheeled into the Air Force Theater Hospital, run by the 332nd Expeditionary Medical Group, at Balad Air Base, on October 30, 2005.
  • Emergency room doctor, Major Corey Harrison at the Theater Medical Hospital, run by the 332nd Expeditionary Medical Group, takes his flak vest off as he rushes to treat wounded American soldiers in Balad, Iraq on October 30, 2005.
  • The medical staff at the Air Force Theater Hospital run by the 332nd Expeditionary Medical Group at Balad Air Base treats wounded American soldiers.
  • Commander of the 332nd Expeditionary Medical Group at the Air Force Theater Hospital in Balad, Iraq, Colonel Elisha Powell, left, gets information from a newly arrived wounded soldiers.
  • Colonel John Ingari, assistant commander of the Air Force Theater Hospital, run by the 332nd Expeditionary Medical Group at Balad Air Base, inspects the body of a wounded American soldier for additional wounds perhaps unseen by the flight medic. Improvised explosive devices cause the most trauma seen in the emergency room, and the shrapnel from those blasts can easily be overlooked by flight medics.
  • Doctors and nurses of the Air Force Theater Hospital treat Lance Corporal Beyers who was injured by an improvised explosive device that injured him and six other Marines with the 3rd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment in Hit, Iraq on Friday, August 26. Lance Corporal Beyers lost his right arm and half of his right leg in the attack.
  • General surgeon, Flight Lieutenant Collette Richards rubs the head of Lance Corporal Mark Beyers, 26, of Elma, New York, as he lies in a coma at the Air Force Theater Hospital on the Balad Air Base in Balad, Iraq on August 27, 2005.
  • CT scan technician, Staff Sergeant Kelly Dewey, looks at the brain scan of Marlon Salcepalma through a CT scanner looking for internal bleeding after he received an RPG blast to the body at Balad Air Base, on October 30, 2005. Such modern technology so far forward on the battlefield is what helps keep the number of patients who die once they reach the hospital down to 4.2%, according to Colonel Elisha Powell.
  • New medical techniques like the external fixator, being inserted into a wounded soldier's leg with a drill seen here, is just one innovation that was tested in the battlefield hospital in an effort to try to more quickly heal the shattering wounds caused by improvised explosive devices.
  • Colonel Elisha Powell the commander of the Theater Medical Hospital of the 332nd Expeditionary Medical Group, at Balad Air Base takes his mask off and cleans up in the field and tent operating room where he prepares wounded soldiers for their flight to Germany for more advanced surgery.
  • Corporal John Apollony, center, holds the hand of fellow Marine, Lance Corporal Matthew Schilling, after finding each other in the hospital in Balad on August 27, 2005. Corporal Apollony, who was in the hospital for a fractured hand, heard Schilling was injured in an improvised explosive device attack in Hit, Iraq the day before.
  • Tech Sergeant Darrell Waite, right, with the Critical Care Aeromedical Team (CCAT) transport a critically wounded Marine from the Balad Theater Medical Hospital in Balad, Iraq to a waiting aircraft ready to fly to Landstuhl, Germany.
  • Wounded are transported from the Contingency Aeromedical Staging Facility (CASF) at Baled Air Base to a bus which will transport them to a C-17 aircraft that will take them on a 5-hour flight to Germany. The CASF manages the movement of the full range of injured soldiers who have to be transported out of Iraq for care.
  • Flight medics make final adjustments to the medicine that Marine Lance Corporal Matthew Schilling will receive before he is transported by a C-141 out of Balad Air Base in central Iraq to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany.
  • Wounded American soldiers are carefully placed onto a C-17 cargo aircraft by a Critical Care Aeromedical Team (CCAT) who will monitor and given medication to relax and ease the pain of air transport for the wounded. Thanks to the rapidity of the transport from the battlefield to the hospital, soldiers can expect a 96% chance of survival from their wounds once they make it to the hospital.
  • A member of the Air Evacuation Unit checks on wounded American soldiers being transported from the Air Force Theater Hospital in Iraq to the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany. Thanks to the rapidity of the transport from the battlefield to the hospital, soldiers have a 96% chance of survival from their wounds once they make it to the hospital.
  • Flight medical technician, Staff Sergeant Judd Everly from the 94th Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron serves hot dogs to wounded soldier Staff Sergeant John Carroll, who has a broken hand, during the flight of a C-141 medical transport from Balad Air Base in central Iraq to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany where he will receive treatment. The flight medics try to make sure the wounded have all of their medical and comfort needs taken care of during the flight.
  • A wounded soldier is carried off of a C-17 aircraft to a rainy flight line at Ramstein Air Base after taking a five-hour flight from Iraq. Soldiers are transported on a C-17 plane from Iraq to Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany. The wounded are then transported to buses and driven to the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center where their wounds will be further repaired, cleaned and treated. By the time the wounded reach Germany they face mainly operations of recovery as opposed to life saving operations.
  • Specialist John Mora adjusts an x-ray machine for Marine Lance Corporal Matthew Schilling at the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center of his amputated right leg and shrapnel ravaged left hand. The 162-bed Landstuhl Regional Medical Center is the largest American Hospital outside of the United States. The hospital serves wounded service members from Iraq with approximately 110 physicians, 250 nurses, 40 medical service corps officers, 900 enlisted personnel, and 550 civilian employees.
  • Marine Lance Corporal Matthew Schilling calls his family from the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany after arriving from Iraq overnight.
  • Doctor Major Paul Phillips and the medical staff of Landstuhl Regional Medical Center prepare to clean and evaluate Marine Lance Corporal Matthew Schilling with the 3rd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment after he arrived from Iraq with an amputated right leg and a shrapnel-damaged left hand. The 162-bed Landstuhl Regional Medical Center is the largest American hospital outside of the United States.
  • Doctor Major Paul Phillips, left, and the medical staff of Landstuhl Regional Medical Center prepare to clean and evaluate Marine Lance Corporal Matthew Schilling’s amputated leg just hours after he arrives from Iraq. At this stage of treatment doctors are already shaping the amputated stump for optimal use with prosthetic legs. Bone that extends past the flesh must be cut back and the flesh cleansed for best recovery. With the majority of the wounds from Iraq accruing from roadside bombs, such operations are a daily procedure.
  • Chaplin George Brubaker performs the communion for the sick with Marine Lance Corporal Matthew Schilling in his Landstuhl Regional Medical Center bed. Lance Corporal Schilling is Catholic and comes from a farming family in rural Pennsylvania. His unit is a reserve Marne unit based out of Buffalo, New York.
  • Physical Therapist Maj. Ford David Paulson helps Marine Lance Corporal Matthew Schilling choose which stretch of the hallway to tackle, the short way or the long way, as Schilling takes his first walker-assisted steps at the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center. Schilling chose to take the longer trip. Schilling returned to his bed exhausted but satisfied that with a modern prosthetic limb, he would be able to walk again. Once back in the United States Schilling will join the ranks of approximately 5,557 soldiers who have suffered wounds in Iraq in the year 2005 alone. Some 15, 955 have been wounded since the start of the war according to information released by the United States government.
  • After receiving a Purple Heart from Major General McCarthy a wounded soldier recounts the attack that resulted in his wounds in Afghanistan at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany. The quick medical transportation system is efficient at treating physical wounds but the mental trauma suffered will take longer to treat.
  • Four days after losing his leg from an improvised explosive device, Marine Lance Corporal Matthew Schilling gets a hair cut at the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany. After more stabilizing surgeries in Germany he will be flown to the United States where he will be fitted with a prosthetic limb.
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