Friday 31 August 2007

A Tour of FOB Salerno Hospital


Who is in Afghanistan, saving lives and easing suffering of US and Coalition casualties and injured Afghan civilians, I thought you might enjoy seeing some of the people here at the Salerno Hospital.






LtCol Howard Phillipi,
Chief Nurse









Mike and Fred
on duty
in the Hosptial HQ






The most important
part of our hospital is the people.


We’re an eclectic mix of Army and Air Force, Active Duty and Reserve, old and young. We’re half Army, half Air Force. We come from all over the country; from Washington State, California, Maine, Florida and everywhere in between.

We’ve got Active duty Army and Air Force, Army and Air Force Reserve, and Air National Guard.

Our youngest Soldier is 19; our oldest Soldier is 55 years old.




Jena, Sara, Patrict
X-ray and
Respiratory Therapy






Catie (patient?),
Loretta, Danielle,
and Susan

On the WARD






We are a trauma unit. We don’t care for many sick people.
We deal with lots of trauma; gunshot wounds, blast injuries, motor vehicle accidents and falls, to name a few.

Lots of open fractures.
Lots of penetrating injuries.
Lots of amputations.
And Lots of other things not suitable for this blog.


Chrystal and Angela
OR Tech
&
OR Nurse


Ready for a Patient






The controlled chaos

of the Emergency Room








Combat Trama
Surgery










Cpt James Goode
CRNA





Cleaning up after the MASCAL

(Mass Casualty Event)

We’ve got all the important parts of a hospital:

Operating Room, Intensive Care Ward, X-Ray, Laboratory, Pharmacy and even a CT scanner, but we're still in tents with wooden floors. The FOB itself is still very primitive. On our FOB there are no paved streets. When it rains, it floods. The hospital floods, the streets flood, the gym floods.

If you wear your rubber boots, you’re fine. Otherwise, you get wet feet.




So there it is, a peek inside our facility,

a peek at our people and our home.

(I thought it would be interesting to all who have followed this blog for the past eight months.)



Thank you

for reading and praying and caring.



Thank you

for remembering the Soldiers in Afghanistan, the “other” war.

Phillips, OUT

4 comments:

mikentexas said...

Wow! They all look so young to be doing such an important job.
God bless you all.

Anonymous said...

Hey where's the Bio Meds?

David M said...

Trackbacked by The Thunder Run - Web Reconnaissance for 09/01/2007
A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention updated throughout the day…so check back often. This is a weekend edition so updates are as time and family permits.

Anonymous said...

Wow, nice blog.
Salerno's come a long way since I've been there (2006-2007).
Will the new hospital (and DFAC!!!) be done soon?