Medics Testify to Fallujah's Horrors (11/24/04)

Medics Testify to Fallujah's Horrors
Navy Corpsmen Treated Unusually Devastating Injuries at Field Hospital
By Jackie Spinner
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 24, 2004; Page A15


FALLUJAH, Iraq -- The first time Jose Ramirez saw a human body ripped apart by a rocket, it took hours for him to regain his composure. Nothing in his training as a Navy medical corpsman had prepared him for the sight of the dead Marine brought in September to the military field hospital outside Fallujah.

"I walked around in shock," said Ramirez, 26, of San Antonio, a Navy petty officer third class attached to Bravo Surgical Company. "I've seen people die before on the emergency room table. But what I was trying not to do, what I was trained not to do, is look at the patient with tunnel vision. It reminded me that I had to get prepared."

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