A whole series of heroes save one LCPL’s life
SGT E sends us a link to the UK’s Daily Mail which tells the story of a Marine, Lance Corporal Winder Perez who had a live grenade imbedded in his leg and a whole host of heroes who saved his life;
After Corporal Perez was wounded, a Black Hawk helicopter transported him from the field to a makeshift operating room surrounded by blast walls.
‘Not only did we know we had to make a soft landing, we had to fly at whatever air speed caused the least amount of vibration,’ Captain Kevin Doo said to Fox.
[…]
[U.S. Navy Nurse Corps Lieutenant Commander James Gennari] held the [M]arine’s hand, dosing him with enough pain medicine so that [Army Staff Sergeant Ben Summerfield] could pull out the grenade.
He attempted to remove it three times, tugging at the dangerous device, before he finally got it out.
‘I said a prayer, and I thanked God for everything I had…’ Lieutenant Commander Gennari told CNN.
It took real heroes to load LCPL Perez into the helicopter, it took heroes to fly the Marine-bomb to the hospital, it took heroes to take him behind the blast walls and it took heroes to extract the explosive from Perez’ leg. Perez is fortunate that he was in the company of heroes that day, because the article reports that Perez survived.
A CNN interview with Lieutenant Commander Gennari;
Category: Real Soldiers
One lucky lance.
Way to go media for getting his rank right in the article….
In the early days of Afghanistan, a similar incident occured, RPG into a troop’s abdomen. Policy at the time was that MEDEVAC wouldn’t fly wounded with live ordnance. The aircrew said “f**k it” and flew anyway. Got him to an Army FWD hospital, same scenario, gutsy medico (surgeon) stood by while Army EOD tech removed the RPG. My understanding is that the EOD guy had to do some surgery under supervision, bottom line, the kid lived and gets to watch his kids grow up. Just like LCPL Perez. Yes, the stuff of heroes.
I wonder how the air crew could fit in the chopper, I wonder where the doc sits down, I wonder how the EOD guy sits down…with balls that big, it must be very hard to find a place to sit for all of them.
The incident EODMAN referenced occurred on 16 March 2006. See linked story near end of article.
http://valorguardians.com/blog/?p=30147
Those soldiers – and those in today’s article – are indeed heroes.
EODMAN@5
Here’s the RPG Removal you mentioned. The Soldier’s name was PFC Channing Moss, the doc was a West Point grad who was originally from South Korea, I believe.
Just like the nurse and EOD tech in this video, they need to have a wheelbarrow issued to carry around their. This vid is just as inspiring as the CNN piece.
Big, giant brass balls.