ER in Iraq: `Awful Lot' of Casualties

BAGHDAD (AP) - The nurse was surprised the two soldiers were still alive.

The day before, the men were carried into the emergency room at Ibn Sina Hospital in Baghdad's fortress-like Green Zone. Both Americans had been badly injured when their Humvee was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade in a Sunni district in western Baghdad.

One soldier would have both legs amputated. The other lost one.

The drama to save their lives - played out in emergency rooms filled with injured U.S. troops as well as Iraqi forces and civilians - was another glimpse of the war's wider evolution: better medical intervention to save soldiers, but more and more injuries pouring in.

U.S. commanders in Iraq, including the top chief Gen. David Petraeus, predict more casualties in the coming months as forces fan out to smaller outposts and expand the security crackdown in Baghdad.

The apparent rise in casualties reaching Ibn Sina suggests bloodier days for U.S. troops in Baghdad since most battlefield injuries outside the capital are treated at the main military hospital in Balad, about 50 miles north of Baghdad.

The two wounded soldiers were among the casualties Friday carried by Black Hawk medevac helicopters. Among the others: four Iraqi soldiers with burns and shrapnel wounds from car bomb attacks in Fallujah and an Iraqi serviceman downed by a sniper.

But 1st Lt. Ken McKenzie, an emergency room nurse, didn't expect the two soldiers to pull through.

"I'm really shocked they're still alive," McKenzie said after visiting the intensive care unit where both men were being treated following the attack in the Amariyah district, where U.S.-led forces began large-scale sweeps against insurgents in March.

The ER doctor who treated them, Maj. Brian Krakover, said both soldiers only reached the 74-bed trauma unit alive because U.S. soldiers are now better trained in first-aid and equipped with a new type of tourniquet to stop the wounded from bleeding to death before they can get medical help.

Even with that, Krakover said one of the two wounded soldiers suffered cardiac arrest at Ibn Sina and the ER had to open his chest to manually pump his heart back to life. The two soldiers were later evacuated to a U.S. military hospital in Germany.

"I've seen an awful lot of severely injured U.S. soldiers in the last few days," said Krakover, of Burk, Va., as he began a 12-hour shift at Ibn Sina on Saturday.

Nearby, U.S. troops visited victims of the Amariyah attack, which had killed one soldier and wounded four.

Capt. Brendan Gallagher, the unit's commander, said suspected Sunni insurgents used two roadside bombs and rocket-propelled grenades or mortars in a carefully coordinated attack.

"We lost our squad leader, a man whose wife just had a baby," said Gallagher, of Columbia, Md. "We wanted to show our respect."

His men, all carrying their M-14s pointed toward the hospital floor, nodded in agreement.

During a two-day visit to the hospital's emergency room by The Associated Press, two U.S. soldiers died during surgery for shrapnel wounds caused by roadside bombs, and an Iraqi servicemen died of a gunshot wound to the head.

"For months, I've seen more American soldiers being treated here than ever before," said McKenzie, of Torrance, Calif.

Soon, another medevac helicopter touched down. It carried two U.S. soldiers whose Humvee had been hit by a rocket-propelled grenade - called an RPG - just above the windshield.

In one ER bed lay 21-year-old Spc. Benjamin West of Tempe, Ariz., with light shrapnel injuries. In a nearby one was his friend "Poncho," a soldier groaning in pain as doctors and nurses removed a clear plastic shield that had been put over his bleeding face.

Later, doctors would remove a large metal fragment near one of his eyes. As he waited for the operation - delirious and in shock - he screamed: "RPG, RPG, incoming RPG."

Propping himself up on one elbow in his bed, West looked over and tried to reassure his friend, saying: "Poncho, there's no RPG. You're all right."
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