.Child victims of Iraq's war trouble U.S. medics
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Staff at the U.S. military hospital in Baghdad are used to horrific injuries but when the limp, bullet-riddled body of a 5-year-old Iraqi boy was zipped up in a grotesquely oversized bodybag, it was different.
It got worse when they heard he was shot by an American.
The child was flown to Baghdad from Taji, 20 km (12 miles) to the north, on Monday evening and rushed into the emergency room with a blue stuffed bear tucked into a blanket wrapped round him.
Half a dozen doctors and nurses quickly unwrapped the naked body, feet already waxy and yellowing. They tore off field bandages to show an elbow reduced to pulp, a head wound that went through to the brain and several other injuries nurses said could be bullet wounds or shrapnel from a bomb.
A nurse pumped the boy's chest, trying to resuscitate him even though others told him there was no pulse and no bleeding from the wounds. "He doesn't have any vital signs," said one.
At 9.46 p.m. (1846 GMT) the boy was pronounced dead, though doctors said he had been dead on arrival, and probably already on departure from the spot where he was hit.
"That was horrible," said a Scottish nurse from the Royal Air Force, Squadron Leader Aileen Danby, who has left her children, aged 3 and 6, for three months to work in Baghdad.
"I was a wee bit upset there," she admitted, minutes later.
You kind of tell yourself in your head that you can handle what we see in there because it's adults .... but I don't know how you bargain with that. No matter how much you're in medicine, children get you every time."
Lieutenant Ken McKenzie, a nurse from Los Angeles, said many children came through the emergency room.
"It's crazy," he said. "We had a 3-year-old the other day. It was like 'Who'd shoot this little boy?' but he was the only one left. They (Iraqi gunmen) shot his entire family."
So we shot him?" McKenzie asked.
The circumstances were still unclear but it started to emerge U.S. troops had shot the boy at a checkpoint. Major Bill White, another nurse, suggested he may have been a decoy used by insurgents to get close.
"They'll deliberately put kids in the car so they get shot," he said.
During the night, a U.S. officer from Taji came for the body, McKenzie said on Tuesday.
"The guy who killed that kid came to collect the body," he said. "He said the car was driving at 45 miles an hour at the checkpoint. It didn't slow down. There was an old guy in the car and the kid in the front seat. They fired warning shots and it didn't stop."
Reuters
I wish I could only post "good news". Any job opening over there in the fox universe?
It got worse when they heard he was shot by an American.
The child was flown to Baghdad from Taji, 20 km (12 miles) to the north, on Monday evening and rushed into the emergency room with a blue stuffed bear tucked into a blanket wrapped round him.
Half a dozen doctors and nurses quickly unwrapped the naked body, feet already waxy and yellowing. They tore off field bandages to show an elbow reduced to pulp, a head wound that went through to the brain and several other injuries nurses said could be bullet wounds or shrapnel from a bomb.
A nurse pumped the boy's chest, trying to resuscitate him even though others told him there was no pulse and no bleeding from the wounds. "He doesn't have any vital signs," said one.
At 9.46 p.m. (1846 GMT) the boy was pronounced dead, though doctors said he had been dead on arrival, and probably already on departure from the spot where he was hit.
"That was horrible," said a Scottish nurse from the Royal Air Force, Squadron Leader Aileen Danby, who has left her children, aged 3 and 6, for three months to work in Baghdad.
"I was a wee bit upset there," she admitted, minutes later.
You kind of tell yourself in your head that you can handle what we see in there because it's adults .... but I don't know how you bargain with that. No matter how much you're in medicine, children get you every time."
Lieutenant Ken McKenzie, a nurse from Los Angeles, said many children came through the emergency room.
"It's crazy," he said. "We had a 3-year-old the other day. It was like 'Who'd shoot this little boy?' but he was the only one left. They (Iraqi gunmen) shot his entire family."
So we shot him?" McKenzie asked.
The circumstances were still unclear but it started to emerge U.S. troops had shot the boy at a checkpoint. Major Bill White, another nurse, suggested he may have been a decoy used by insurgents to get close.
"They'll deliberately put kids in the car so they get shot," he said.
During the night, a U.S. officer from Taji came for the body, McKenzie said on Tuesday.
"The guy who killed that kid came to collect the body," he said. "He said the car was driving at 45 miles an hour at the checkpoint. It didn't slow down. There was an old guy in the car and the kid in the front seat. They fired warning shots and it didn't stop."
Reuters
I wish I could only post "good news". Any job opening over there in the fox universe?
posted by madtom at 7:43 PM
1 Comments:
This war is the second expensive for U.S. after the World War II. Here I've tried to summarize all costs of the Iraq war for Americans:
http://www.myhowtoos.com/en/red-hot/86-all-costs-of-war-in-iraq-for-usa
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