Features : : Dustoff Portraits
Medevac Pilot Captain David Lovett: I constantly find new things to worry about. I am always worried whenever they go out on missions and I am not there. I'm constantly wondering how far out are they, when are they getting back. I'd like to be out there with them all the time.The biggest concern is doing the hoist missions in the Korengal Valley because you are a sitting target. You are trying to get in there, get the medic and get out. You don't want to sit and hover anywhere in the Korengal. Whenever I wake up in the middle of the night and we have a nineline call, I always think please let it not be a hoist in the Korengal. I try and not tell my wife everything so that she doesn't worry. What I miss most is proper airconditioning and food.
Flight Medic Sgt Nate Whorton: A lot of people ask me: How do you do this job ? How do you deal with paople dying, hurt people every day. For me it's a matter of focus. I don't focus on the person in pain. I try and focus on the fact that we are doing something good for them. If it weren't for us being there they wouldn't receive any care at all. Often times in a mass casualty incident you have to choose between injured forces. You have more people than you can treat on your own at that time with your amount of resources. So you actually have to pick who is going to live. and who is going to die. The objective is to do the most good for the most people. So if by saving three people this one person dies. At least this guy in his death is sacrificing his life to save three people. You can't beat yourself up over one bad call. You gotta take the hits and focus on the good you are doing. Friends and family they don't want to know all the details. They think they do so you give them the answers that kind of appease them. Nobody wants to hear about anybody dying. I have a personal responsibility and obligation to the guy on the ground risking his life every day to protect my family back home. I'm going to do what I can to pull him out. And if someone is standing in the way of his safety, it's a bad day for that someone.
Medevac Pilot CW2 Scott St Aubin: As a pilot this is a very difficult environment to fly in. When I came here my thoughts were that I was going to be in danger and my crew was going to be in danger because of the enemy that we face. Obviously as Medevac we fly into our rescue scenarios unarmed. In addition you have the high altitude and the rugged terrain. It requires a lot of crew coordination to keep everybody safe so we can get in and get back out in one piece.
CW4 Medevac Pilot Gary Heyne: We try to get in and out as fast as possible. Things can happen but I don't think about it. All I think about is is flying and go and get the patient, and bring my crew and and aircraft back. I am glad I am doing what I am doing because there are people out there who really need us. My biggest fear is when I have put the medic on the ground and loiter before I pick him up again. Because I have left one of mine on the ground. We pick up civilians too. A patient is a patient. A life is a life. I have no hesitation to pick up an Afghan soldier or civilian. You can't plan for what we do. You can't plan for the unexpected. I try and limit what my family know about what I do. I really miss quiet. When I get home I want to spend some time with my family. Go and see my dad. Sit on the porch and enjoy the quiet.
CW2 Medevac Pilot Cole Gould: The biggest fear flying in this enviroment of course is getting shot down. But when I am on a mission it really doesn't even cross my mind - I don't think of it. I am still aware of the threat and I do what I can to keep the helicopter and crew safe, but if there is a mission that takes us into enemy fire that is just the job. The fear or being nervous does not hit me until we land and are done with the mission and I have time to think about what happened.
I really miss my family. I have 2 baby girls. One is 2 years old and the younger one is just 4 months old. I miss them like crazy as well as my wife kasandra. I also miss the comforts of home and the peace and quiet because there is not quiet time here at all.
I try not to tell my family everything that happens here or what I see cause I don't want them to worry. I tell them that we are saving a lot of lives here and that our boys in the mountains are kicking ass and killing a lot of enemy.
Brigade Surgeon Major Everett Fuller: The types of injury we see here are penetrating injuries, like gunshot wounds, you have multi trauma like IED blasts (improvised explosive device), land mine blasts and because of the mountainous terrain we have had a fair number of falls. Some with pretty nasty injuries. What helps is having some level of detachment. When you know something is coming in, you mentally prepare yourself. It might be something that looks pretty bad. You just focus on what you have to do. Airway, breathing, stop the bleeding instead of trying to get personal.
Medevac Pilot CW3 Eric Johnston: You tend to get in a go mode. You get focussed on the mission. You don't think about anything else that is going on. The only call that really bothered me was when we hauled a little girl from Azadabad. She was a local national. She had been hurt pretty bad. Her pain medication started wearing off as we got to the flight line here to transfer her to another aircraft. I could hear her crying. It bothered me because I have got my girls at home. That's been the one mission that stuck in my head and bothered me.Two things I never discuss at work are religion and politics. What I miss most here is things like being with my family, drive my truck, play with the kids, have a beer with dinner. Just the little things that make home home.
Medevac Pilot CW4 Brendon Erdmann: One of the first flights I did was in the Korengal. The OP (observation post) was under attack and it is so small that you can only do a two wheel landing. Fairly tense, trying to load a patient who was shot in the head. We were engaged (shot at ) as we departed. It was really challenging. With Medevac nothing is planned. Because everything happens so quickly you have to be spontaneous. Saturdays and weekends tend to be busy. Fridays Taliban fighters go to the mosque and are charged and accomplish what they need to do on Saturdays. When I get back I am going on a Disney cruise.
Flight Medic Sgt Nate Whorton: A lot of people ask me: How do you do this job ? How do you deal with paople dying, hurt people every day. For me it's a matter of focus. I don't focus on the person in pain. I try and focus on the fact that we are doing something good for them. If it weren't for us being there they wouldn't receive any care at all. Often times in a mass casualty incident you have to choose between injured forces. You have more people than you can treat on your own at that time with your amount of resources. So you actually have to pick who is going to live. and who is going to die. The objective is to do the most good for the most people. So if by saving three people this one person dies. At least this guy in his death is sacrificing his life to save three people. You can't beat yourself up over one bad call. You gotta take the hits and focus on the good you are doing. Friends and family they don't want to know all the details. They think they do, so you give them the answers that kind of appease them. Nobody wants to hear about anybody dying. I have a personal responsibility and obligation to the guy on the ground risking his life every day to protect my family back home. I'm going to do what I can to pull him out. And if someone is standing in the way of his safety, it's a bad day for that someone.
CW2 Medevac Pilot Jason Penrod: Because of dangers around here there are few areas we go without an Apache attack helicopter escort. And that is for a reason. There are people here who shoot at us but you don'y fly your aircraft any different. I don't want to be the guy on Al Jazeera who has crashed just because I did something stupid. My biggest fear is injuring one of my crew or damaging the aircraft. I don't talk a lot about what I do to my family. I just got married before I came out here and it has been a tough pill for my family to swallow. We have all had sleepless nights here after some of the missions we fly. But being here makes you look at a lot of things a lot differently.
CW4 Medevac Pilot Gary Heyne: We try to get in and out as fast as possible. Things can happen but I don't think about it. All I think about is is flying and go and get the patient, and bring my crew and and aircraft back. I am glad I am doing what I am doing because there are people out there who really need us. My biggest fear is when I have put the medic on the ground and loiter before I pick him up again. Because I have left one of mine on the ground. We pick up civilians too. A patient is a patient. A life is a life. I have no hesitation to pick up an Afghan soldier or civilian. You can't plan for what we do. You can't plan for the unexpected. I try and limit what my family know about what I do. I really miss quiet. When I get home I want to spend some time with my family. Go and see my dad. Sit on the porch and enjoy the quiet.
Ssg. Flight Medic Emmett Spraktes: Point of injury calls are the most challenging because of the dangers around. Sometimes we even have to stop working on a patient to see if we are safe ourselves. There are times when I see guys go out and think: Is this the last time I am going to see him ? There are times when I go out and think: Is this the last time anyone is going to see me ? Sometimes you go out and there are bad guys running around, who shoot at us and you wonder what will they say to my children. Are they going to get that knock on the door. It does weigh heavy on you sometimes. But what you do is you focus and you do your job.
Crew Chief Sgt Kevin "Dangle" Duerst: Me and Marc Dragony a flight medic here got a call. We had no information. We took off. By the time we got to the scene in a valley we decided to do a hoist. I put Marc on the ground. We left the scene to loiter. We then got a call to get back and extract him and the patients. Little did we know that they were taking fire. They waved us away. But I could see the enemy on the left side on a hill. It didn't feel comfortable. I didn't have a rifle. A pistol on my leg but that's it. Just me sitting in the door by myself. We left and came back right into the middle of a firefight. We had to leave again and wait until Apache helicopters had cleared the area. We got two patients out. They were bleeding quite heavily. That was a good day because they both lived. I wasn't afraid until on the way home. In the thick of it you don't have time to be afraid. It only hits you afterwards. I am bit superstitious, so before I take off I piss on the tail of the helicopter. I carry a patch that my father gave me from Vietnam.
CW2 Medevac Pilot Jason Penrod: Because of dangers around here there are few areas we go without an Apache attack helicopter escort. And that is for a reason. There are people here who shoot at us but you don'y fly your aircraft any different. I don't want to be the guy on Al Jazeera who has crashed just because I did something stupid. My biggest fear is injuring one of my crew or damaging the aircraft. I don't talk a lot about what I do to my family. I just got married before I came out here and it has been a tough pill for my family to swallow. We have all had sleepless nights here after some of the missions we fly. But being here makes you look at a lot of things a lot differently.
