Record survival rate for soldiers in Iraq

For every American soldier killed in Iraq, nine others have been wounded and survived -- the highest rate of any war in U.S. history.

It isn't that their injuries were less serious, a new report says. In fact, many young soldiers have had faces, arms and legs blown off and are now returning home badly maimed. But they have survived thanks to armor-like vests and fast treatment from doctors on the move with surgical kits in backpacks.

Today in Iraq, real-life Hawkeyes and B.J. Hunnicuts have stripped trauma surgery to its most basic level, carrying "mini-hospitals" in six Humvees and field operating kits in five backpacks so they can move with troops and do surgery on the spot.

This is an amazing story. I have to give a lot of praise to the surgeons that are working directly with combat units, as well as the folks that are getting the wounded to the necessary care within a matter of hours and to major medical facilities within days.

If you see the pictures of those wounded that were published, while they are graphic, you might be amazed that they all lived.

This is an incredible account. After reading it I am reminded of my trip to the Manasas (Bull Run), where modern battlefield medicine began. A doctor's bag had as it's main component - a saw. They did set up an ambulance of sorts to get those immediately not killed off the battlefield, but they didn't have Walter Reed in the wings.

I saw this story in my local rag (North Mississippi Daily Journal)this morning. They headlined and edited it to show the story as a negative.

They must have had to try hard to show it as a negative when you read comments from the doctor(s) who wrote the article or were interviewed in the article for NEJM, and you hear them say things like:

"Within an hour, we drop the tents and set up the OR tables, and we can pretty much start operating immediately," said Peoples, whose photographs are in the medical journal.
or:
"The average time from battlefield to arrival in the United States is now less than four days. In Vietnam, it was 45 days," Gawande writes.

It's hard to twist that as a negative. Dr. Atul Gawande (who wrote the study) had nothing but praise for the military surgeons (he was part of an exchange program at Walter Reed for a while and saw at least the stateside treatment first hand).

Very interesting when you read article at NEJM, Dr. Gawande mentioned that even simple things like ballistic goggles are having a big impact.

His slant is that even though the firepower is more lethal now, troop protection and medical care has advanced even faster.

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