A Day In The Life

As I have indicated in previous blogs Ian has a friend who is the Uncle of CDR Coffel, who is currently at Role 3 with Shannon. CDR Coffel sent an e-mail thanking a charitable organization for sending calling cards to the troops, in response they asked him to send a "Day In The Life" snapshot of Role 3. Ian and I thought this snapshot was enlightening, and we were given permission to share it with Shannon's followers.

CDR Coffel's response
A day in my life is very different here, it can dramatically change within minutes. For example yesterday was a wild day for us here. We started out our day with a couple of surgical cases that were scheduled from the previous day. Mainly wound debridements and washouts. The cases went well and we were able to get them done fairly fast. As soon as we cleaned up the room, we got a "9-line" stating that they were bringing in 2 Alpha's (Alpha is a extremely critical patient from the battle field, they are called in by the troops on the ground and then picked up by helicopters and sent to the nearest medical facility). The two arrived in less then 30 minutes and rolled into our trauma bays, they were assessed and then they were sent to the OR for surgery. One fractured leg due to a gun shot wound and the other was for a head concussion with bleeding in the dura space. As soon as we got done with those two case a couple of hours later. We literally walked out of the room after it was cleaned and another chopper landed with an Afghany kid and his father. The kid was brought into our trauma bay awake and sitting up looking around. His father was just with him without injury. From what we could gather there was a mortar attack by the Taliban and he was hit by a fragment of the mortar shell in the side of the chest. As they were evaluating his wounds his heart rate went way up and his blood pressure started to drop. They intubated him and did an ultrasound on his chest and belly, they found blood in his epicardial space (the tissue that surrounds the heart). We brought him into surgery immediately and cut open his abdomen to try and do a cardiac window procedure (this releases the blood and decompresses the pressure on it), it didn't work. So they made an incisions over his chest and split the sternum (breast bone) to expose the heart to see what was going on. They saw the blood through the epicardium and incised it, blood rushed out and the kids blood pressure dropped very fast. Lucky for us we were using a rapid infuser to give him blood. They discovered a hole in his heart from the fragment, one of the surgeons put his finger in it. The Anesthesiologist was telling them that they were losing him. The blood was able to fill back up in his heart and his pressure began to rise again. The other surgeon then sewed up the heart, we then closed the kid up and he was doing very well after.

We then received 2 more patients that were Bravos (Injured patients that can't walk but not critically injured). They were a fractured femur and a blast injury to the head. They required an external fixator and a wound washout. This all happened with in a 12 hour period of time. Other times we can sit around and not see a surgical patient at all. In that case we do training and cleaning. Very boring but necessary. Being the Department Head, I have a lot of administrative work that I have to do. We are getting ready to move into a new hospital and we have a lot to do before we can move. This is where I spend most of my time now.

Some days it feels like ground hog day, we get up, work out, go to work, go home, eat, and go to bed. Not much to do around here besides that. We do have a boardwalk area where we can go, some shops are there but most have shut down due to the US Commander closing Them down due to having a "three ring circus" in the middle of a war zone. We lost Pizza Hut and Burger King, but we have a TGIF. I try and stay away from them, trying to eat healthy while I'm here.

You may want to watch Night Line in the next couple of weeks, they are coming here to film us at work. Not sure when it will air, since they haven't arrived yet. Hope this helps.