Why medics rock!

First off, they are resilient and don't mind my cheezy thoughts and jokes. One of my medics...shoot he's not actually a medic, but he's with our company, so he's still cool. Got his finger jammed between a large heavy safe and a wall. We had to do some fun stitching, but even with swelling, pain and stitches, he still worked. But when the swelling went down, we discovered the tip of his finger was off to the side more than the other. And...he could not bend his finger. Xrays didn't show any fracture or dislocation, so I decided to do traction therapy....or what was better known as "pulling Sandoval's finger". It helped though and he was able to bend his finger more over time. But two thoughts developed from this. One was that I would be able to get a t-shirt such as the "I ate the worm. Cancun, Mexico". But instead it would say "I pulled Sandoval's finger, Baghdad, Iraq". No one else thought this was a good idea, but they were nice enough to laugh. Then after he was able to bend his finger more, I realized what a HUGE mistake it was. Prior to the therapy, he was able to bend his finger to just the right position for mimicking the young boy in the movie "The Shining" when he was in his room saying "Red rum". Dang, that would've been great to have him do all the time. Oh well...it's his trigger finger, so at least he could shoot his weapon. I guess that might be more important.





Second, they are brave and great at their jobs. We recently had a man brought in with a fall and head injury. We wanted to urgently send him to the local Combat Support Hospital (CSH), but the air looked like this... (taken just before the incident as I was walking to the dining facility)


...instead of this (taken a few days later)


The air was red. And since I was in the dining facility, they had to send a runner to get me. By the time I made it to the aid station, the medics had him all set and informed me of their assessment. They were awesome. All I had to do was to do my secondary exam and we were set. But since the air was red, they had to drive. I watched them load the patient and drive off. I was so proud of them. And most of all, very relieved they are good at what they do. Since I have zero trauma experience, it's nice to know that I don't have to teach what I only know on paper to my medics. Below are them loading the patient into the vehicle.








And finally, they are funny! I woke up one morning to see this after opening my door.

Apparently, the night medics decided to take the poster off another part of the building and place it on another medics door. The medic who lived across from me told me he felt bad that I had to open my door to it every day so he thought it would make thing better if Jean Claude said something. So one morning I woke up to this.

It say's "Good morning, Ma'am". Yes! My very own morning greating from Jean Claude Van Damme. Though, he is LionhAREt instead of LionhEARt, but that's okay, we've all decided a Lionharet is better. In fact, one of the medics channeled the power of the Lionharet to help him break down a wood stand. They are contant entertainment for all.

Otherwise, it's been relatively nice and quiet and away from all the drama of the company leaders who left to another base!