Posted on 10/24/2007 3:11:32 PM PDT by IonImplantGuru
The U.S. military tries to keep its distance from the enemy, which is why there is a lot of emphasis now on robots that can disable roadside bombs from a distance. While we know insurgents are everywhere in Iraq, we don't tend to think of soldiers encountering them head on. But they do, as this fascinating Army Times story about a soldier who survived being knifed in the forehead by an insurgent.
Doctors estimate that at least four inches of the knife was plunged into his head. The attack occurred at a cordoned-off blast site. What saved him was medical know-how, great logistics and quite a lot of teamwork.
It felt like a nasty sucker punch. Yet when he strained his eyes to the hard right, there was something that didn't belong: the pewter-colored contour of a knife handle jutting from his skull.
Sgt. Dan Powers, stabbed in the head by an insurgent on the streets of East Baghdad, triggered a modern miracle of military medicine, logistics, technology and air power.
His survival relied on the Army's top vascular neurosurgeon guiding Iraq-based U.S. military physicians via laptop, the Air Force's third nonstop medical evacuation from Central Command to America, and the best physicians Bethesda National Naval Medical Center in Maryland could offer.
It required extraordinary hustle from a string of ground medics, air medics, C-17 pilots, jet refuel technicians and more. Not an hour after the attack, Powers, a squad leader with the Army's 118th Military Police Company, was draped in sheets on a medical gurney bound for Balad Air Force Base, about 30 minutes away by helicopter.
Someone pressed a phone to his left ear so he could promise his wife, in a panic worlds away, that everything would be fine. He would soon drench a surgeon's hands in blood, narrowly surviving as a medical team opened his skull to extract 4 inches of blade from his brain.
These are the staggering measures that allowed Powers to keep his promise and his life.
Ugh...
My tax dollars at work for all the right reasons.
I’ve got a $5 bill that says he re-enlists.
Thank you Jesus (and medical personnel) for this hero’s survival!
Prayers for his recovery.
And our military are just the ones to provide it. God bless them all.
Beautiful!, now he really can say, “I need that like I need another hole in the head!”......
Miraculous .. thank you, Lord!
BTTT
Wow. I’m speechless.
This must be the PC/PBS version of the story. What happened to the man who did this? I assume he is dead since he did not try to retrieve his knife.
Since this was an MP perhaps the gravestone reads
Here lies hadji
stabbed at GI in the eye
7 rounds from a 45
The GI lived, the hadji dies...
A big hoo-ah for the medics.
Here lies hadji, who stabbed a GI in the eye
Hadji got 7 rounds from a 45
The GI lived and hadji died...
Praise the Lord!
He spared this brave patriot!
Hope his recovery is smooth and quick.
Prayers for him.
I’ll take that bet. He may want to “ship-over” but he will not be medically quallified to. Most of us head injury folks would love to go back to do the things that we love the most. But can not due to the head trauma, and the changes that we incore because of this type of injury. I should know, I am a 10 year head injury surivor!
I agree!
Great story!
“I should know, I am a 10 year head injury surivor!”
Congratulations to you as well, and thank you for your service to our country.
BTTT
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