Best Defense
Thomas E. Ricks' daily take on national security.

When an expert rides the medevac bird

It is nothing unusual for a reporter to cover the efforts of medics in combat. But when that reporter is also a practicing doctor, as in this case, it makes for a special story. David Brown’s article is full of small, self-confident touches that can only come from someone who has worked in an emergency ...

The U.S. Army/flickr

It is nothing unusual for a reporter to cover the efforts of medics in combat. But when that reporter is also a practicing doctor, as in this case, it makes for a special story. David Brown's article is full of small, self-confident touches that can only come from someone who has worked in an emergency room himself:

It is nothing unusual for a reporter to cover the efforts of medics in combat. But when that reporter is also a practicing doctor, as in this case, it makes for a special story. David Brown’s article is full of small, self-confident touches that can only come from someone who has worked in an emergency room himself:

Four people run to the helicopter with the stretcher holding the wounded soldier. He lies on his back partially wrapped in a foil blanket. His chest is bare. In the middle of it is an "intraosseous device," a large-bore needle that has been punched into his breastbone by the medic on the ground. It’s used to infuse fluids and drugs directly into the circulatory system when a vein can’t be found. It’s a no-nonsense technology, used occasionally in World War II, that fell out of favor when cheap and durable plastic tubing made IV catheters ubiquitous in the postwar years. Until they were revived for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, intraosseus devices were used almost exclusively in infants whose veins were too small to find.

Or this comment about how much painkiller has been given the wounded soldier: "He’s gotten 10 mg of morphine, not a lot."

More on medics/corpsmen here, in a graphic novel produced by the military.  

Thomas E. Ricks covered the U.S. military from 1991 to 2008 for the Wall Street Journal and then the Washington Post. He can be reached at ricksblogcomment@gmail.com. Twitter: @tomricks1

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