By MATTHEW NOVAK
Nov. 1, 2009, started for the corpsmen at Forward Operating Base Gulistan in Afghanistan like any other day.
We woke up, went through our morning routine and began the day.
As I prepared for a morning class, teaching in-depth medical classes to junior corpsmen, the sergeant of the guard came to the forward aid station and said there were local nationals at the gate with an injured boy.
He had fallen from a cliff.
FOB Gulistan routinely saw humanitarian patients, so HMC Anthony Geron made his way down to the gate with HM3 James Liston.
A few minutes after they departed, HM3 Nicholas Becker came running back into the station, saying, “It’s bad, get ready.”
The sergeant of the guard returned, saying they needed a stretcher fast. I gave him a stretcher and started preparing a trauma bed while putting other corpsmen in motion to have everything ready.
The stretcher came through the door and was slid up to the bed.
The 11-year-old boy was cocooned in a blanket. We started removing the blanket and clothes to find that he was in much worse shape than we had initially thought.
At the initial examination there was a massive laceration to the right side of his face, exposing the right eye orbit. He had abrasions across the right side of the torso from chest to knee. His breathing was labored.
A crucial IV was started.
His head wound was inspected and flushed of debris. Spinal immobilization was started.
The young boy’s breathing was getting worse and we quickly re-evaluated his lung sounds, finding that at a minimum he was suffering from a tension pneumothorax (when the space between the lung and its exterior lining begins to fill with air).
We acted quickly.
Once the area was prepped, I rolled the needle over the second rib and pulled the needle out, leaving the catheter. The young boy’s breathing steadied and oxygen concentration in his blood began to come back up.
It was decided that he needed to be medically evacuated, and fast. The casualty evacuation line was called in as an urgent priority.
The boy’s labored breathing returned.
Geron and I knew we had to find some way to provide constant relief to the space, but we did not have time to start a chest tube. I again inserted a 14-gauge IV needle, this time not removing the catheter. Knowing that the catheter needed to remain in place but needed some type of valve and sure way to be secured to the boy’s chest, I grabbed a Bolin chest seal, cut a valve out of it, slid the catheter end through the valve and secured it to his chest. I cut the tip of a pinky finger of a latex exam glove, putting a tiny slit in the very tip and secured it over the catheter end so that air could escape but not enter. After one final once-over, the boy was stable and ready for transport to the incoming helicopter.
We picked up the stretcher and raced him out to a waiting Humvee. Geron and I jumped in the back with the boy to continue monitoring and treating him. We then turned the boy over to medical workers on the Black Hawk.
As the Black Hawk took off, we stood there and wondered if the boy would survive. Two days later, an e-mail informed us that the boy was stable and would be fine.
The corpsmen were informed that we saved that young boy’s life.
Matthew E. Novak, 22, is a Navy hospital corpsman third class stationed with 3rd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment in Twentynine Palms, Calif. He is deployed to FOB Gulistan in Afghanistan. This is Novak’s second tour of duty after enlisting at age 19. His first tour was to Iraq in 2008, where he earned Fleet Marine Force recognition/insignia. He is the son of retired Sgt. 1st Class David and Connie Harmon-Novak of Johns-town and is a 2006 graduate of Richland High School.
