Memory Hole Photos updated (some graphic)

The Memory Hole injured soldier photos updated.

Tree honors Vietnam, Iraq soldiers

Tree honors Vietnam, Iraq soldiers
One father says, "It's a shame that another generation has to go through the same thing that the Vietnam generation did."
By Sam Hananel
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON -- David Fondren held back tears as he described the Thanksgiving Day attack in Iraq that left his son, Jay, a double amputee.

Fondren and other relatives, veterans and volunteers from Walter Reed Army Hospital came to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on Wednesday to read holiday greetings to soldiers dead and alive.

[partial text only; follow link for full article]

Arkansas soldier gets Bronze Star for valor in Iraq

Arkansas soldier gets Bronze Star for valor in Iraq
BY KATHERINE MARKS

A roadside bomb last May left Spc. Henry Phillips an amputee and killed three men. But Phillips’ actions that day saved the lives of others, soldiers said Wednesday at a ceremony honoring the Arkansas National Guard soldier. "He continued to carry out his mission even after he’d been critically wounded," Maj. Gen. Don C. Morrow, adjutant general of the Arkansas National Guard, said after presenting a Bronze Star with valor to Phillips at a ceremony at Ricks Readiness Center in Little Rock.

[partial text only; follow link for full article]

GI amputee parachutes safely (amputee returns to service)

GI amputee parachutes safely

The Associated Press
FORT BRAGG, N.C. - An 82nd Airborne Division soldier who was maimed by a roadside bomb in Iraq has made his first parachute jump since his leg was amputated below the knee.
Spc. George Perez, 21, of Carteret, N.J., said earlier this year one of his goals was to jump again so he could rejoin his unit in Afghanistan early in 2005. He was wounded in 2003.

[partial text only; follow link for full article]

Soldiers lost legs but kept strength (photos)

Soldiers lost legs but kept strength
Wounded Fort Campbell sergeants adjusting to life at home

By CHANTAL ESCOTO
The Leaf-Chronicle
Alicia Archuleta/The Leaf-Chronicle


Master Sgt. Luis Rodriguez puts on the prosthetic leg he uses for walking and daily tasks. Rodriguez has a second leg that is better suited for exercise.
EDITOR'S NOTE

Leaf-Chronicle reporter Chantal Escoto met Luis Rodriguez and Heath Calhoun last December when she traveled to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., and visited wounded troops from Fort Campbell. What follows is an update on the soldiers' struggles and triumphs one year later.

The small miracles bring victory for Master Sgt. Luis Rodriguez and Staff Sgt. Heath Calhoun. Both soldiers with the 101st Airborne Division lost legs in enemy attacks while in Iraq more than a year ago. While both are relearning basics such as walking, driving and climbing steps, they say a positive attitude and a network of family and friends help them overcome just about every obstacle.

[partial text only; follow link for full article]

Family copes with injury to Marine

Family copes with injury to Marine

By Jaine Treadwell, The Messenger
On Thursday, Sept. 2, 2004, the world that Jean Wynn Hare viewed through rose-colored glasses suddenly changed.

"As if the glasses had been yanked from my face," she said. "In that instant, my little world expanded to include strangers who touched my heart.

"Now, let me tell you about my grandson."

This story is about Jean and Bill Hare's grandson. It is through him that they have come to know the realities of war as they connected with strangers. This is the story of a generation of youths that will bear the scars of war for the remainder of their lives.

[partial text only; follow link for full article]

On one leg, a young GI fights to build a new life (photos)

On one leg, a young GI fights to build a new life

By John Aloysius Farrell
Denver Post Washington Bureau Chief


Post / Craig F. Walker
His right leg lost in a mortar attack in Iraq last January, Army Spec. Sean Lewis tests a titanium prosthesis in September at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Lewis, 21, is one of 200 amputees among the war’s more than 10,000 wounded.

[partial text only; follow link for full article]

An unforgettable Christmas parade for local woman

An unforgettable Christmas parade for local woman


JANE HESS
By Martha O'Connor
Examiner Staff Writer
12/22/04
"Peace on earth good will to men" - a familiar message of the holiday season - took on a deeper meaning recently for former Bellefontaine resident Jane Hess, an Air Force colonel who works at the Pentagon as inquiry officer for the Air Force Inspector General.

[partial text only; follow link for full article]

Bringing U.S. Wounded Home from the Battlefield (Audio)

Bringing U.S. Wounded Home from the Battlefield


Talk of the Nation, December 20, 2004 · Advances in battlefield medicine mean more and more U.S. soldiers survive severe injuries and make it home again. That's where they face the daunting challenge of recovery and a possible life with disability. In the second of our two-part discussion of the wounds of war, we report on soldiers adapting to life after being wounded overseas.

Guests:

Nancy Shute, senior writer, US News and World Report; wrote on the medical treatment of soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan

David Coleman, Marine Lance Cpl. wounded in Iraq in September, awaiting surgery

Dr. Roy Aaron, professor of orthopedic surgery, Brown Medical School, Providence, R.I.; heading a research project on restoring arm and leg functions to amputees

Hometown hero stops in North County to rest up for the holidays (photo)

Hometown hero stops in North County to rest up for the holidays
Dawn Halfaker is a former Rancho Bernardo High basketball player who lost her right arm in Iraq in the fall and is back home in Ramona for the holidays.
Don Boomer
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Visit our Photo Gallery

By: TERRY MONAHAN - Staff Writer

RAMONA ---- Whether it was roller-blading down the hill in front of the family home or getting friends to help launch her off the trampoline in the back yard, Army Capt. Dawn Halfaker has spent most of her life on the move.

But Halfaker, 25, a former star basketball player at Rancho Bernardo High who also played four seasons at West Point, has needed all the energy she could muster since she was wounded June 19 in an ambush near Baqubah in Iraq.

[partial text only; follow link for full article]

Soldier's hurt, but he'll be home for Christmas

Soldier's hurt, but he'll be home for Christmas
Jim Memmott
Senior editor
(December 19, 2004) — If he clears one final medical hurdle, Army 1st Lt. William Reynolds III will be coming home to Pittsford today for the holidays.

Seriously injured in Iraq on Nov. 7, the 24-year-old Pittsford Mendon High School graduate has been on a harrowing journey.

But innumerable units of blood and a dozen surgeries later, he is scheduled to arrive at Greater Rochester International Airport at 5:06 p.m. today.

The only thing that could delay his arrival is an indication of any infection on one of his leg wounds.

[partial text only; follow link for full article]

Twins in trauma, treatment

Twins in trauma, treatment
Guardsmen share amputation ordeal

By VALERIE BAUERLEIN, Washington Correspondent

WASHINGTON -- A month ago, they weren't friends.
Now they debate sharing a pair of shoes, the right one for the commander and the left for the soldier.

They are putting off their Purple Heart ceremony until they can get their medals side by side, as they were side by side when a grenade exploded between them.

[partial text only; follow link for full article]

At Landstuhl, those injured in Iraq get best chance at survival

At Landstuhl, those injured in Iraq get best chance at survival

BY TOM HUNDLEY
Chicago Tribune

LANDSTUHL, Germany - (KRT) - The flight from Baghdad to the snow-dusted forests of southwest Germany takes about six hours. The planes arrive every day, bearing broken soldiers from the battlefields of Iraq.

Some are walking; others, heavily sedated, are on stretchers. In the most severe cases, ghastly abdominal wounds have been left open, covered only with a clear plastic bag. From the airfield, they are loaded onto a blue bus for the short drive to the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, the U.S. military's largest hospital in Europe.

[partial text only; follow link for full article]

Soldier vows life will go on despite injury
By Staff Sgt. Cheryl Hackley
National Guard Bureau


Photo by Staff Sgt. Cheryl Hackley
Spc. Austin Philips stands on crutches as his physical therapist, Robert Bahr, looks on. Part of his PT requires him to be able to walk before getting his prosthetic leg.
ARLINGTON, Va. – Today, one can turn on the news and hear how many of America's brave men and women have made the ultimate sacrifice, their lives, in the war on terrorism. That number is now over 1,000 and climbs higher on almost a daily basis. But there are also those unknown numbers of men and women who have returned from the war with injuries. Here is the story of one man, a Soldier, who lost part of his leg in Operation Iraqi Freedom, but not his will to live.
Austin Philips was 20 when he joined the Army National Guard. He was working at a Wal-Mart distribution center loading and unloading trailers, but wanted to earn some extra money. He learned about the Guard from a friend, and in 1997 enlisted as a mortarman in Charlie Co. 1st Battalion, 153rd Infantry, 39th Brigade, Mena, Ark.

He attended basic training at Fort Benning, Ga. "Home of the Infantry – hooah!" said Philips, "it was challenging, both mentally and physically."

In 1999, he was deployed for four months to Kuwait as part of a Guard rotation . "I performed vehicle searches while I was there," he said.

In the fall of 2003, he was notified that he would be deploying to Iraq.

The specialist began his deployment October 2003 at Fort Hood, Texas. Next, he attended the Joint Readiness Training Center in Fort Polk, La. By mid-March, he arrived in Kuwait for the second time. On April 1, 2004 he convoyed through southern Iraq, headed for Forward Operating Base Head Hunter in Baghdad.

"It was nice to get to see a lot of the country," he said. "As we progressed through Iraq, we went from the desert through parts of the country that was irrigated. You could see knee-high grass. It was green as could be."

Upon arrival, everyone was a little confused as to what exactly they were doing.

"All of our training was for vehicle patrols, but we quickly learned everything we did would be on foot," he said.


Photo by Staff Sgt. Cheryl Hackley
Phillips lies with his leg on a bolster as part of strength training in physical therapy.
A platoon of up to 14 Soldiers would go on patrol, searching an area between two and seven miles. Each patrol could take up to six hours and they were conducted night and day. The commander would talk to Iraqi citizens and try to figure out what kind of problems they were having. All the while they had to be careful of their surroundings.

"You couldn't pick an enemy out of a crowd," he said. "It's not like they wore a uniform or anything, you basically had to wait until the insurgents shot at you or something until you knew who the target was."

Until the morning he was wounded, Philips had never been fired at. "I was injured May 20," said Philips as he prepared to share his combat experience that changed his life.

A platoon had gone out at midnight on patrol. An explosion went off, a grenade or something was thrown, but no one was injured. The quick reaction force he was part of rolled out to assist at about 3 a.m. The group rounded a corner and suddenly insurgents remotely detonated a bomb, he said.

"I was immediately knocked to the ground. My boot was blown off my foot, and my pant leg was shredded," he recalls. "I could tell I was going to lose my leg."

He never lost consciousness. It hurt a lot and Philips was screaming, he said. But his primary concern was locating his M4, which he had lost in the blast.

"Right away I started looking for my gun. My lieutenant eventually got it to me; I wanted to try and protect the others around me. Blasts were going off all around us and insurgents were firing from the roof tops."

Within 30 minutes, two other platoons came in and secured the area. A Soldier performed self-aide buddy care on him and put a tourniquet on Philips' right leg. He was rushed to a combat support hospital were this leg was amputated a few inches below the knee. From there he was sent to Germany and within two days of the explosion, he arrived at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

In a sad tone, Philips explained that three people were killed in the blast, including the Iraqi interpreter Philips had befriended. In his downtime, the interpreter had been teaching him how to speak in Arabic. Two others were also injured.

"I later found out the bomb was a 155mm artillery round," he said.

Philips wanted to be the one to tell his wife what happened to him.

"I was really nervous," he said. "I asked a nurse how to explain this to my wife."

She told me just to be honest with her, so I called and told her at work I had bad news.

"When he called and said that, I figured it couldn't be that bad since he was talking to me," recalled Pam, his wife. It took a few days to get to Walter Reed, but Pam was by his side as soon as possible and hasn't really left it since.

"One thing I learned over there for sure is that you can't do this without your family," said Philips, "Without them, I wouldn't be able to continue on. I push myself harder for them."

The couple has a 2-year-old son, Jacob. He hasn't seen his father since he deployed last October. "I want to wait and see Jacob after I get my prosthetic leg," said Philips. "That way, he can see me walk. I can explain to him that I am still Daddy. I can tell him what happened and show him my new leg, but that I haven't changed."

Philips also suffered shrapnel wounds to his back, but it's his leg that keeps him on the orthopedic ward of the hospital. Like all other amputees, he must go to physical therapy to gain strength and prepare for his prosthetic leg.

"Once someone gets injured and they come to Walter Reed, we have a program to get them ready to use their prosthetics," said Robert Bahr, a physical therapist, "After the sutures heal, they are fitted for their prosthetics and we teach them how to use it."

Philips plans to request a medical retirement from the military and then go to college, which the Veterans Affairs will help pay for. He thinks he wants a business degree, maybe go into politics someday. Either way, this Soldier is motivated. "I have to continue being outgoing," he said, "I can't hate what happened to me."

His experience can't be put into words. "The friendship and camaraderie you build with Soldiers in that environment, you can't find that anywhere else," he said.

"I would do it all over again," he said, "even knowing I would lose a leg."

Philips shows what it means to be a Soldier. He lost his leg, but not his love for his country or his family. As of press time, Philips had been released from the hospital and continues to look forward to the rest of his life.

Numbers Update

**It is interesting that this article, written in September 2003, quotes Dr. Delaune as saying that they had 1 or 2 amputations per day. A modest count of March - August 6 months x 30 days = 360 amputees. That was over a year ago, yet the number reported in December 2004 is supposed to be only 200.**


"We see a lot of amputations," Delaune says. "Initially I was probably seeing one or two amputations a day. Now we're down to maybe one every two or three days," says Delaune. "The limbs just get damaged to a point where they can't be salvaged, and in the field hospitals where they're initially treated, an amputation is performed. We see a lot of eye injuries as well."

Until the middle of the summer, Dr. Delaune, 38, was living comfortably with his wife in Washington, D.C. He works as an emergency physician and instructor at George Washington University. Now on active duty, Delaune now helps airlift wounded troops out of Baghdad for hospitalization in places like Germany, and back home in the United States.
[source]

VA Funds New Limb-Loss Research

VA Funds New Limb-Loss Research


WASHINGTON, Dec. 16 /PRNewswire/ -- Creating "biohybrid" limbs that use
human tissue and space-age technology to assist amputees is the major goal of
a $7.2 million grant by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to establish a
special research center in Rhode Island.
"Helping our combat-disabled veterans recover from their wounds is among
VA's highest responsibilities," said Secretary of Veterans Affairs Anthony J.
Principi. "This grant allows us to bring cutting-edge science to help these
wounded heroes."
The five-year grant will fund the new Center for Restorative and
Regenerative Medicine, to be operated jointly by the Providence VA Medical
Center, Brown University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Scientists hope to create "biohybrid" limbs that will use regenerated
tissue, lengthened bone, titanium prosthetics and implantable sensors that
allow amputees to use nerves and brain signals to move arms or legs. The aim
is to give amputees -- particularly war veterans -- better mobility and
control of their limbs and to reduce the discomfort and infections common with
current prosthetics.
According to a recent Senate report, body armor and improvements in
casualty care have contributed to the lowest "died-of-wounds" rate in military
history. However, the report says more surviving soldiers from the Iraq war
have lost arms or legs. Historically, 3 percent of soldiers wounded in action
required some amputation, but the number in Iraq is 6 percent, according to
the report.
"VA has been a leader in prosthetics and limb-loss research throughout its
history," said Dr. Jonathan B. Perlin, VA's acting under secretary for health.
"This new center continues that tradition. It will help veterans and all
Americans who have lost limbs to have greater mobility, greater function and
greater independence than previously possible."
The new research center will be located at the Providence VA Medical
Center. Research and clinical care will take place at the medical center,
Brown, MIT and Rhode Island Hospital.
Dr. Roy Aaron, director of the center at VA Providence, said biohybrid
limbs will maximize amputees' existing tissue and bone. Surgery that
lengthens bone will be coupled with tissue engineering techniques to speed
healing. The goal is to make bones longer to improve the fit of prosthetics
and make bones stronger to reduce fractures.
Researchers will use tissue engineering to further restore limbs.
Research also will focus on joining biological tissue with high-tech
prosthetics. Researchers will try to improve a process known as
"osseointegration," in which a titanium bolt is attached to an amputee's
existing limb, allowing the attachment of prosthetics. These researchers will
try to grow skin that will fuse with the titanium, forming a natural seal
around the bolts to reduce the rate of infection.
"While many of the techniques we're using are being tested across the
country, this project marks the first time they will be pulled together to
improve care for amputees, particularly veterans," Aaron said.
Anyone who has lost a limb -- due to injuries or diseases such as diabetes
and bone cancer -- will be eligible to enroll in clinical trials.
While the project's ultimate aim is to build biohybrid limbs, experiments
may yield advances that could be used for many clinical applications. For
example, cartilage regeneration could prevent the need for total knee and hip
replacement surgeries. A skin seal could improve the safety of catheters,
stents and other medical devices prone to infection. And robotic knees and
ankles could help people immobilized by stroke, cerebral palsy and multiple
sclerosis.


SOURCE U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
Web Site: http://www.va.gov

Body Builders (3/16/04)

Body Builders

Caring for the Wounded in Iraq (12/9/04) Photos

Caring for the Wounded in Iraq — A Photo Essay
George E. Peoples, M.D., James R. Jezior, M.D., and Craig D. Shriver, M.D.
New England Journal of Medicine

Vietnam Vets Volunteer Themselves to the Wounded

Vietnam Vets Volunteer Themselves to the Wounded

In the very best spirit of volunteerism, several VFW members are demonstrating the meaning of caring. They are determined not to let this generation of veterans down.

By Susan Katz Keating
A tall young man who is missing a large chunk of his scalp moves easily through the banquet room, stopping briefly to share a joke with a man whose suit lapel sports a miniature Combat Infantryman Badge. A waitress skillfully navigates the room's nine tables, holding aloft her tray of thick steaks while stepping sideways to avoid a blind man's cane. Against a back wall, crutches are propped within easy reach of their seated owners.

[partial text only; follow link for full article]

'Miracle' Soldier Battling Back (12/14/04)

'Miracle' Soldier Battling Back
Dec. 14, 2004

As a member of the 82nd Airborne, Staff Sgt. Dan Metzdorf was accustomed to leaping out of airplanes, and leading the charge for the U.S. Army. But 10 days into his deployment in Iraq, he knew life would never be the same.

[partial text only; follow link for full article]

'Hardball' inside Walter Reed (12/13/04) Photo, Video

'Hardball' inside Walter Reed
Chris Matthews on a wounded soldier's journey home

Updated: 1:53 p.m. ET Dec. 13, 2004
WASHINGTON D.C. - Fisher Houses are residences that provide temporary lodging for members of U.S. Armed Services, veterans, and their families during a medical crisis. They provide a warm environment where families and friends can stay close to one another and nurture one another in time of need.

On December 16, 2004, ‘Hardball’ airs a visit to the Fisher House in Walter Reed Army Medical Center to see how America’s bravest are doing there. As soldiers and their families spend their holidays rehabilitating, Chris Matthews shares two amazing stories about life in the Fisher House, the long road to recovery, and the soldiers' hopes for the future.

[partial text only; follow link for full article]

About & Contact

This site is devoted to compiling information on those who have suffered a limb loss as a result of their service in Iraq and Afghanistan. Please feel free to spread word of this blog.


If you would like to suggest an article or ask questions, please contact me at amputeeblog[at]yahoo[dot]com. Thank you.

Some vets face tangle of red tape (12/12/04)

Tending to our wounded
Some vets face tangle of red tape


Former Army Reserve Sgt. Mary Herrera lost the use of her right arm after being wounded in Iraq. She says the system worked for her: She received her disability benefits and plans to attend college in Houston, where she now lives. -- Adriane Jaeckle / The Star

Where vets can find help
The United States has 25 million living military veterans, about three-quarters of whom served in wartime.
About 70 million people, about a quarter of the U.S. population, are potentially eligible for Veterans Affairs benefits because they are veterans, family members or survivors of veterans.

Where to find help
• U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, (800) 827-1000, www.va.gov. The Web site includes a list of service organizations to help former soldiers.
• Disabled American Veterans, (859) 441-7300, www.dav.org. Nonprofit organization of 1.2 million members founded in 1920 and dedicated to building better lives for disabled veterans and their families.

VA disability benefits
About 2.5 million U.S. veterans receive disability compensation.
Basic disability benefits range from $106 monthly (for those rated 10 percent disabled), to $2,239 (100 percent disabled).
Additional allowances are made for those with dependents and for those whose disability leaves them unable to work or who need assistance with daily living. Such factors can increase compensation to as much as $6,404 monthly.
Disability benefits are not subject to federal or state income tax and are adjusted to reflect cost-of-living increases.

Source: Department of Veterans Affairs, Disabled American Veterans

Links to other web sites will open a new browser. IndyStar.com is not responsible for the content, accuracy or privacy practices of these sites.


Survival rates

A total of 11,246 soldiers have been wounded or killed in action in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts. The percentage of U.S. soldiers who survived their wounds:*
Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts

90%
Persian Gulf War

76%
Vietnam War

76%
Korean War

75%
World War II

70%
World War I

79%
*Casualty figures for the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts are as of Friday.
Sources: Department of Defense, The New England Journal of Medicine



By John Strauss
john.strauss@indystar.com
December 12, 2004


ORLANDO -- Chief Warrant Officer Cody Sharp, an Army helicopter pilot in Iraq, got used to people shooting at him.

In April, his Kiowa Warrior had been taking fire all day.

"Baghdad was crazy that day," he said. "But I didn't look at it as being dangerous. It was just part of the job."

He spotted a dozen men with AK-47 rifles and rocket-propelled grenades and dropped the helicopter's nose, preparing to fire. At the last second, he turned away -- an old woman and a child were near the gunmen.

[partial text only; follow link for full article]

Numbers Update: 6% of those wounded require amputations

Data compiled by the US Senate, and included in the 2005 defense appropriations bill in support of a request for increased funding for the care of amputees at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, reveal that 6 percent of those wounded in Iraq have required amputations, compared with a rate of 3 percent for past wars.
[Boston Herald article]

Amputation rate for US troops twice that of past wars (12/9/04)

CARING FOR THE WOUNDED
Amputation rate for US troops twice that of past wars
Doctors cite need for prosthetics as more lives saved
By Raja Mishra, Globe Staff | December 9, 2004

US troops injured in Iraq have required limb amputations at twice the rate of past wars, and as many as 20 percent have suffered head and neck injuries that may require a lifetime of care, according to new data giving the clearest picture yet of the severity of battlefield wounds.

[partial text only; follow link for full article]

War increases need for medical personnel (12/11/04)

War increases need for medical personnel

By Linda Leicht
News-Leader Staff

With more than 10,000 Americans wounded so far in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the need for medical personnel is great — both abroad and at home.
"Now we find ourselves a nation at war," Brig. Gen. C. William Fox Jr. told a group of doctors and others at St. John's Hospital Friday morning. Fox, a urologist and surgeon, commands the 44th Medical Command in the United States, Afghanistan, Kuwait and Iraq.

[partial text only; follow link for full article]

Gathering focuses on blast injuries (12/11/04)

Gathering focuses on blast injuries
A conference in Tampa looks for better ways to treat soldiers who are hurt in battlefield explosions.
By LISA GREENE, Times Staff Writer
Published December 11, 2004

TAMPA - First comes the shock wave, which can bring immediate death.

Then it's the shrapnel tearing into skin, the crush of falling walls, the body landing hard after being hurled into the air.

All are part of why the injuries soldiers face from explosives are different, and often worse, than bullets.

[partial text only; follow link for full article]

VA working to maintain prosthetic support for amputees (12/11/04)

November 11, 2004
VA working to maintain prosthetic support for amputees

By Dennis Camire
Gannett News Service


Erick Castro, who lost his left leg in Iraq to a rocket-propelled grenade, really likes the high-tech artificial leg the military gave him.
But finding a prosthetic technician near his Santa Ana, Calif., home to help keep it working is a problem.

“I tried going with the Veterans Affairs Department but there wasn’t much experience there,” said Castro, who was an Army sergeant riding in an armored personnel carrier in April 2003 when he was hit. “Instead, the VA actually let me go outside and look for a vendor. Right now, I’m in the process of talking to several of them.”

[partial text only; follow link for full article]

Iraq death rate lower, but wounds are worse (12/10/04)

Iraq death rate lower, but wounds are worse
By Raja Mishra The Boston Globe
Friday, December 10, 2004

Amputation percentage alarms doctors

BOSTON U.S. troops wounded in Iraq have required limb amputations at twice the rate of past wars, and as many as 20 percent have suffered head and neck wounds that may require a lifetime of care, according to new data that gives the clearest picture yet of the severity of battlefield wounds.

The data are the grisly flip side of the improvement in battlefield medicine that has saved combatants who would have died in the past. Only one in 10 U.S. troops wounded in Iraq has died, the lowest rate of any war in U.S. history.

[partial text only; follow link for full article]

Army takes action on soldier (12/10/04)

Army takes action on soldier
Family sets up benefit fund

By Dianna Cahn
Times Herald-Record
dcahn@th-record.com

LIVE CHAT: Join reporter Dianna Cahn and Christine Loria, wife of Spc. Robert Loria today at 6:30 for a live chat.

Previous story: He lost an arm in Iraq; the Army wants money

Middletown – Outrage over Army Spc. Robert Loria's struggle to get home after losing his arm in service for his country prompted the Army today to take action.
Responding to pressure from Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-Saugerties, and U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-NY, the Army said it would release Loria on medical discharge beginning immediately, both men said.
The Army has also agreed to waive most of the debt against Loria and to help him file proper paperwork for the rest of it.
Aides to Hinchey and Schumer said the Army was going to forgive the $2,408 in excess Family Separation allowance the military erroneously paid Loria as well as a $310 charge for equipment issued to Loria that was damaged or lost in the attack in Iraq. And the Army was also going to help Loria refile his travel papers to make sure he does not get saddled with paying back advance travel money used to travel from the base at Fort Hood, Texas, to a follow-up visit to Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, D.C.
"The Congressman was pleased that the Army recognized its mistakes and has worked to fix those," said Dan Ahouse, Hinchey's aide. "However, a man who has made such an extreme sacrifice for his country should never have been in this situation to begin with. This situation begs the question of how many other Spc. Lorias are there?"
Schumer, speaking to the Times Herald-Record, said he was outraged when he heard of Loria's predicament.
"It broke my heart. I was both sad and angry," Schumer said. "The first thing is to help him, and then to see if it is happening to anybody else."
An outpouring also came from people across our region and across the country. A fund is being set up by the Loria family for all those offering assistance as Loria tries to rebuild his life after such an ordeal. The Times Herald-Record will publish that as soon as the fund is established.

Benefit Fund for Robert Loria
Bank of New York
440 route 211 East
Middletown, NY 10940

War injuries spur $9m amputee fund [The Age]

War injuries spur $9m amputee fund
By Raja Mishra
Washington
December 10, 2004

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American troops injured in Iraq have required limb amputations at twice the rate of past wars, and as many as 20 per cent have suffered head and neck injuries that may require a lifetime of care.

New data on war wounds are the grisly flip side of improvements in battlefield medicine that have saved many combatants who would have died in the past: only one in 10 US troops injured in Iraq has died, the lowest rate of any war in US history.

But those who survive have much more grievous wounds. Bulletproof Kevlar vests protect soldiers' bodies, but not their limbs, as insurgent snipers and makeshift bombs tear off arms and legs and rip into faces and necks. More than half of those injured are wounded so badly that they cannot return to duty, according to Pentagon statistics.

Attention has focused on the more than 1000 soldiers killed in Iraq, but the Pentagon has released little information on the 9765 soldiers injured so far.

"The death rate isn't great compared to Vietnam, Korea, and World War II. But these soldiers are coming back to their communities and people are seeing just how high the price is that these young people are paying," said head and neck surgeon Richard Holt. Dr Holt works at the University of Texas Health Science Centre, in San Antonio. Also a retired US Army surgeon, he was a civilian adviser in Iraq this year.

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AdvertisementData compiled by the US Senate - included in the 2005 defence appropriations bill in support of a request for increased funding for the care of amputees at Walter Reed Army Medical Centre - reveal that 6 per cent of those wounded in Iraq have required amputations, compared with 3 per cent for past wars. Brown Medical School's Roy Aaron said the medical system "literally cannot handle the load" of amputees.

Responding to the large number of amputations, scientists at Brown University, in Providence, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Wednesday announced a $US7.2 million ($A9.5 million) research program to design more functional prosthetic limbs. The Department of Veterans Affairs is paying for the work.

"Amputee research has never been a high priority because it's not . . . fashionable," Dr Aaron said. "Iraq has changed that."

The Brown-MIT research, which will not be ready for many years, will look at building better titanium prosthetic limbs and use computer technology to develop prosthetic devices that can be controlled by brain sensors implanted in patients.

In World War II, about 30 per cent of those wounded died, and in Vietnam, the figure was 24 per cent. In Iraq and Afghanistan, the mortality rate has been 10 per cent.

· Four US troops serving on an elite special operations task force in Iraq have been disciplined for abusing prisoners in Iraq, including unauthorised use of Taser electric-shock weapons.

- agencies

Iraq death rate lower, but wounds are worse (12/10/04)

Iraq death rate lower, but wounds are worse
By Raja Mishra The Boston Globe

Amputation percentage alarms doctors

BOSTON U.S. troops wounded in Iraq have required limb amputations at twice the rate of past wars, and as many as 20 percent have suffered head and neck wounds that may require a lifetime of care, according to new data that gives the clearest picture yet of the severity of battlefield wounds.
.
The data are the grisly flip side of the improvement in battlefield medicine that has saved combatants who would have died in the past. Only one in 10 U.S. troops wounded in Iraq has died, the lowest rate of any war in U.S. history.
.
But those who survive have much more grievous wounds. Bulletproof Kevlar vests protect soldiers' bodies but not their limbs, as insurgent snipers and makeshift bombs tear off arms and legs and rip into faces and necks.
.
More than half of those wounded sustain wounds so serious they cannot return to duty, according to Pentagon statistics.
.
Much attention has focused on the 1,000-plus soldiers killed in Iraq, but the Pentagon had released little information on the 9,765 soldiers wounded as of this week.
.
"The death rate isn't great compared to Vietnam, Korea and World War II," said Dr. G. Richard Holt, a head and neck surgeon at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio and a retired U.S. Army surgeon who served as a civilian adviser in Iraq earlier this year. "But these soldiers are coming back to their communities and people are seeing just how high the price is that these young people are paying."
.
Responding to the large number of amputations, scientists at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Wednesday announced a $7.2 million research program over five years to design more functional prosthetic limbs. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is paying for the work.
.
Data compiled by the U.S. Senate, and included in the 2005 defense appropriations bill in support of a request for increased funding for the care of amputees at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, revealed that 6 percent of those wounded in Iraq have required amputations, compared with a rate of 3 percent for past wars.
.
Dr. Roy Aaron, of the Brown Medical School, said the current Veterans Affairs medical system "literally cannot handle the load" of amputees.
.
"Amputee research has never been a high priority" because it's not "fashionable," said Aaron, who is heading the Brown-MIT effort. "Iraq has changed that."
.
Stephan Fihn, the acting chief of research and development for the Veterans Affairs Department, said that military officials were concerned about the expected flood of amputees but that the system would "absolutely, without a doubt" be able to handle them.
.
"Returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan are our highest priority now," he said.
.
The Brown-MIT project will explore methods to build better titanium prosthetic limbs, extend bone stumps for tighter attachment of prosthetics and use computer technology to develop prosthetic devices that can be controlled by brain sensors implanted in patients. However, the advances will not be ready for years, and many Iraq veterans will not immediately benefit, Aaron said.
.
In Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Atul Gawande, a journalist and Harvard surgeon, writes: "The nation's military surgical teams are under tremendous pressure, but they have performed remarkably in this war. They have transformed the strategy for the treatment of war casualties."
.
In World War II, about 30 percent of those wounded died, and in Vietnam the figure was 24 percent. In Afghanistan, as in Iraq, the mortality rate has been 10 percent.
.
Gawande and others credited improvements made after Vietnam, when medics noted that most soldiers who made it to surgical facilities survived. In Iraq, military field surgical teams work just behind front lines, with four surgeons and a nursing team able to erect a four-bed surgical unit in one hour. In the current conflict, the average time it takes a wounded soldier to go from the battlefield to front-line care and on to full-service military hospitals in Germany, Kuwait and Spain has been about four days, compared with weeks in previous wars.
.
In addition to amputations, many soldiers making this journey have head and neck wounds, frequently wounded by improvised explosive devices essentially remote-controlled bombs planted in the ground.
.
Lieutenant Colonel Michael Xydakis, a military surgeon, released a little-noticed study in September at a medical conference of head and neck surgeons. He found that over a 14-month period, about one in five U.S. soldiers treated at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, which handles most Iraq casualties, had head or neck wounds.
.
These wounds, surgeons said, have long-term implications, with many involving irreversible brain damage, breathing and eating impairments, blindness, or severe disfiguration. The study prompted the military to add a full-time head and neck surgeon to a Baghdad field hospital.
.
"These folks are just starting to come back, and they may require care for a long, long time," Holt said.
.Amputation percentage alarms doctors

BOSTON U.S. troops wounded in Iraq have required limb amputations at twice the rate of past wars, and as many as 20 percent have suffered head and neck wounds that may require a lifetime of care, according to new data that gives the clearest picture yet of the severity of battlefield wounds.
.
The data are the grisly flip side of the improvement in battlefield medicine that has saved combatants who would have died in the past. Only one in 10 U.S. troops wounded in Iraq has died, the lowest rate of any war in U.S. history.
.
But those who survive have much more grievous wounds. Bulletproof Kevlar vests protect soldiers' bodies but not their limbs, as insurgent snipers and makeshift bombs tear off arms and legs and rip into faces and necks.
.
More than half of those wounded sustain wounds so serious they cannot return to duty, according to Pentagon statistics.
.
Much attention has focused on the 1,000-plus soldiers killed in Iraq, but the Pentagon had released little information on the 9,765 soldiers wounded as of this week.
.
"The death rate isn't great compared to Vietnam, Korea and World War II," said Dr. G. Richard Holt, a head and neck surgeon at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio and a retired U.S. Army surgeon who served as a civilian adviser in Iraq earlier this year. "But these soldiers are coming back to their communities and people are seeing just how high the price is that these young people are paying."
.
Responding to the large number of amputations, scientists at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Wednesday announced a $7.2 million research program over five years to design more functional prosthetic limbs. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is paying for the work.
.
Data compiled by the U.S. Senate, and included in the 2005 defense appropriations bill in support of a request for increased funding for the care of amputees at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, revealed that 6 percent of those wounded in Iraq have required amputations, compared with a rate of 3 percent for past wars.
.
Dr. Roy Aaron, of the Brown Medical School, said the current Veterans Affairs medical system "literally cannot handle the load" of amputees.
.
"Amputee research has never been a high priority" because it's not "fashionable," said Aaron, who is heading the Brown-MIT effort. "Iraq has changed that."
.
Stephan Fihn, the acting chief of research and development for the Veterans Affairs Department, said that military officials were concerned about the expected flood of amputees but that the system would "absolutely, without a doubt" be able to handle them.
.
"Returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan are our highest priority now," he said.
.
The Brown-MIT project will explore methods to build better titanium prosthetic limbs, extend bone stumps for tighter attachment of prosthetics and use computer technology to develop prosthetic devices that can be controlled by brain sensors implanted in patients. However, the advances will not be ready for years, and many Iraq veterans will not immediately benefit, Aaron said.
.
In Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Atul Gawande, a journalist and Harvard surgeon, writes: "The nation's military surgical teams are under tremendous pressure, but they have performed remarkably in this war. They have transformed the strategy for the treatment of war casualties."
.
In World War II, about 30 percent of those wounded died, and in Vietnam the figure was 24 percent. In Afghanistan, as in Iraq, the mortality rate has been 10 percent.
.
Gawande and others credited improvements made after Vietnam, when medics noted that most soldiers who made it to surgical facilities survived. In Iraq, military field surgical teams work just behind front lines, with four surgeons and a nursing team able to erect a four-bed surgical unit in one hour. In the current conflict, the average time it takes a wounded soldier to go from the battlefield to front-line care and on to full-service military hospitals in Germany, Kuwait and Spain has been about four days, compared with weeks in previous wars.
.
In addition to amputations, many soldiers making this journey have head and neck wounds, frequently wounded by improvised explosive devices essentially remote-controlled bombs planted in the ground.
.
Lieutenant Colonel Michael Xydakis, a military surgeon, released a little-noticed study in September at a medical conference of head and neck surgeons. He found that over a 14-month period, about one in five U.S. soldiers treated at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, which handles most Iraq casualties, had head or neck wounds.
.
These wounds, surgeons said, have long-term implications, with many involving irreversible brain damage, breathing and eating impairments, blindness, or severe disfiguration. The study prompted the military to add a full-time head and neck surgeon to a Baghdad field hospital.
.
"These folks are just starting to come back, and they may require care for a long, long time," Holt said.
.Amputation percentage alarms doctors

BOSTON U.S. troops wounded in Iraq have required limb amputations at twice the rate of past wars, and as many as 20 percent have suffered head and neck wounds that may require a lifetime of care, according to new data that gives the clearest picture yet of the severity of battlefield wounds.
.
The data are the grisly flip side of the improvement in battlefield medicine that has saved combatants who would have died in the past. Only one in 10 U.S. troops wounded in Iraq has died, the lowest rate of any war in U.S. history.
.
But those who survive have much more grievous wounds. Bulletproof Kevlar vests protect soldiers' bodies but not their limbs, as insurgent snipers and makeshift bombs tear off arms and legs and rip into faces and necks.
.
More than half of those wounded sustain wounds so serious they cannot return to duty, according to Pentagon statistics.
.
Much attention has focused on the 1,000-plus soldiers killed in Iraq, but the Pentagon had released little information on the 9,765 soldiers wounded as of this week.
.
"The death rate isn't great compared to Vietnam, Korea and World War II," said Dr. G. Richard Holt, a head and neck surgeon at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio and a retired U.S. Army surgeon who served as a civilian adviser in Iraq earlier this year. "But these soldiers are coming back to their communities and people are seeing just how high the price is that these young people are paying."
.
Responding to the large number of amputations, scientists at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, and at the Massachusetts Institute of



See more of the world that matters - click here for home delivery of the International Herald Tribune.
< < Back to Start of Article Amputation percentage alarms doctors

BOSTON U.S. troops wounded in Iraq have required limb amputations at twice the rate of past wars, and as many as 20 percent have suffered head and neck wounds that may require a lifetime of care, according to new data that gives the clearest picture yet of the severity of battlefield wounds.
.
The data are the grisly flip side of the improvement in battlefield medicine that has saved combatants who would have died in the past. Only one in 10 U.S. troops wounded in Iraq has died, the lowest rate of any war in U.S. history.
.
But those who survive have much more grievous wounds. Bulletproof Kevlar vests protect soldiers' bodies but not their limbs, as insurgent snipers and makeshift bombs tear off arms and legs and rip into faces and necks.
.
More than half of those wounded sustain wounds so serious they cannot return to duty, according to Pentagon statistics.
.
Much attention has focused on the 1,000-plus soldiers killed in Iraq, but the Pentagon had released little information on the 9,765 soldiers wounded as of this week.
.
"The death rate isn't great compared to Vietnam, Korea and World War II," said Dr. G. Richard Holt, a head and neck surgeon at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio and a retired U.S. Army surgeon who served as a civilian adviser in Iraq earlier this year. "But these soldiers are coming back to their communities and people are seeing just how high the price is that these young people are paying."
.
Responding to the large number of amputations, scientists at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Wednesday announced a $7.2 million research program over five years to design more functional prosthetic limbs. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is paying for the work.
.
Data compiled by the U.S. Senate, and included in the 2005 defense appropriations bill in support of a request for increased funding for the care of amputees at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, revealed that 6 percent of those wounded in Iraq have required amputations, compared with a rate of 3 percent for past wars.
.
Dr. Roy Aaron, of the Brown Medical School, said the current Veterans Affairs medical system "literally cannot handle the load" of amputees.
.
"Amputee research has never been a high priority" because it's not "fashionable," said Aaron, who is heading the Brown-MIT effort. "Iraq has changed that."
.
Stephan Fihn, the acting chief of research and development for the Veterans Affairs Department, said that military officials were concerned about the expected flood of amputees but that the system would "absolutely, without a doubt" be able to handle them.
.
"Returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan are our highest priority now," he said.
.
The Brown-MIT project will explore methods to build better titanium prosthetic limbs, extend bone stumps for tighter attachment of prosthetics and use computer technology to develop prosthetic devices that can be controlled by brain sensors implanted in patients. However, the advances will not be ready for years, and many Iraq veterans will not immediately benefit, Aaron said.
.
In Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Atul Gawande, a journalist and Harvard surgeon, writes: "The nation's military surgical teams are under tremendous pressure, but they have performed remarkably in this war. They have transformed the strategy for the treatment of war casualties."
.
In World War II, about 30 percent of those wounded died, and in Vietnam the figure was 24 percent. In Afghanistan, as in Iraq, the mortality rate has been 10 percent.
.
Gawande and others credited improvements made after Vietnam, when medics noted that most soldiers who made it to surgical facilities survived. In Iraq, military field surgical teams work just behind front lines, with four surgeons and a nursing team able to erect a four-bed surgical unit in one hour. In the current conflict, the average time it takes a wounded soldier to go from the battlefield to front-line care and on to full-service military hospitals in Germany, Kuwait and Spain has been about four days, compared with weeks in previous wars.
.
In addition to amputations, many soldiers making this journey have head and neck wounds, frequently wounded by improvised explosive devices essentially remote-controlled bombs planted in the ground.
.
Lieutenant Colonel Michael Xydakis, a military surgeon, released a little-noticed study in September at a medical conference of head and neck surgeons. He found that over a 14-month period, about one in five U.S. soldiers treated at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, which handles most Iraq casualties, had head or neck wounds.
.
These wounds, surgeons said, have long-term implications, with many involving irreversible brain damage, breathing and eating impairments, blindness, or severe disfiguration. The study prompted the military to add a full-time head and neck surgeon to a Baghdad field hospital.
.
"These folks are just starting to come back, and they may require care for a long, long time," Holt said.
.Amputation percentage alarms doctors

BOSTON U.S. troops wounded in Iraq have required limb amputations at twice the rate of past wars, and as many as 20 percent have suffered head and neck wounds that may require a lifetime of care, according to new data that gives the clearest picture yet of the severity of battlefield wounds.
.
The data are the grisly flip side of the improvement in battlefield medicine that has saved combatants who would have died in the past. Only one in 10 U.S. troops wounded in Iraq has died, the lowest rate of any war in U.S. history.
.
But those who survive have much more grievous wounds. Bulletproof Kevlar vests protect soldiers' bodies but not their limbs, as insurgent snipers and makeshift bombs tear off arms and legs and rip into faces and necks.
.
More than half of those wounded sustain wounds so serious they cannot return to duty, according to Pentagon statistics.
.
Much attention has focused on the 1,000-plus soldiers killed in Iraq, but the Pentagon had released little information on the 9,765 soldiers wounded as of this week.
.
"The death rate isn't great compared to Vietnam, Korea and World War II," said Dr. G. Richard Holt, a head and neck surgeon at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio and a retired U.S. Army surgeon who served as a civilian adviser in Iraq earlier this year. "But these soldiers are coming back to their communities and people are seeing just how high the price is that these young people are paying."
.
Responding to the large number of amputations, scientists at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Wednesday announced a $7.2 million research program over five years to design more functional prosthetic limbs. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is paying for the work.
.
Data compiled by the U.S. Senate, and included in the 2005 defense appropriations bill in support of a request for increased funding for the care of amputees at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, revealed that 6 percent of those wounded in Iraq have required amputations, compared with a rate of 3 percent for past wars.
.
Dr. Roy Aaron, of the Brown Medical School, said the current Veterans Affairs medical system "literally cannot handle the load" of amputees.
.
"Amputee research has never been a high priority" because it's not "fashionable," said Aaron, who is heading the Brown-MIT effort. "Iraq has changed that."
.
Stephan Fihn, the acting chief of research and development for the Veterans Affairs Department, said that military officials were concerned about the expected flood of amputees but that the system would "absolutely, without a doubt" be able to handle them.
.
"Returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan are our highest priority now," he said.
.
The Brown-MIT project will explore methods to build better titanium prosthetic limbs, extend bone stumps for tighter attachment of prosthetics and use computer technology to develop prosthetic devices that can be controlled by brain sensors implanted in patients. However, the advances will not be ready for years, and many Iraq veterans will not immediately benefit, Aaron said.
.
In Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Atul Gawande, a journalist and Harvard surgeon, writes: "The nation's military surgical teams are under tremendous pressure, but they have performed remarkably in this war. They have transformed the strategy for the treatment of war casualties."
.
In World War II, about 30 percent of those wounded died, and in Vietnam the figure was 24 percent. In Afghanistan, as in Iraq, the mortality rate has been 10 percent.
.
Gawande and others credited improvements made after Vietnam, when medics noted that most soldiers who made it to surgical facilities survived. In Iraq, military field surgical teams work just behind front lines, with four surgeons and a nursing team able to erect a four-bed surgical unit in one hour. In the current conflict, the average time it takes a wounded soldier to go from the battlefield to front-line care and on to full-service military hospitals in Germany, Kuwait and Spain has been about four days, compared with weeks in previous wars.
.
In addition to amputations, many soldiers making this journey have head and neck wounds, frequently wounded by improvised explosive devices essentially remote-controlled bombs planted in the ground.
.
Lieutenant Colonel Michael Xydakis, a military surgeon, released a little-noticed study in September at a medical conference of head and neck surgeons. He found that over a 14-month period, about one in five U.S. soldiers treated at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, which handles most Iraq casualties, had head or neck wounds.
.
These wounds, surgeons said, have long-term implications, with many involving irreversible brain damage, breathing and eating impairments, blindness, or severe disfiguration. The study prompted the military to add a full-time head and neck surgeon to a Baghdad field hospital.
.
"These folks are just starting to come back, and they may require care for a long, long time," Holt said.
.Amputation percentage alarms doctors

BOSTON U.S. troops wounded in Iraq have required limb amputations at twice the rate of past wars, and as many as 20 percent have suffered head and neck wounds that may require a lifetime of care, according to new data that gives the clearest picture yet of the severity of battlefield wounds.
.
The data are the grisly flip side of the improvement in battlefield medicine that has saved combatants who would have died in the past. Only one in 10 U.S. troops wounded in Iraq has died, the lowest rate of any war in U.S. history.
.
But those who survive have much more grievous wounds. Bulletproof Kevlar vests protect soldiers' bodies but not their limbs, as insurgent snipers and makeshift bombs tear off arms and legs and rip into faces and necks.
.
More than half of those wounded sustain wounds so serious they cannot return to duty, according to Pentagon statistics.
.
Much attention has focused on the 1,000-plus soldiers killed in Iraq, but the Pentagon had released little information on the 9,765 soldiers wounded as of this week.
.
"The death rate isn't great compared to Vietnam, Korea and World War II," said Dr. G. Richard Holt, a head and neck surgeon at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio and a retired U.S. Army surgeon who served as a civilian adviser in Iraq earlier this year. "But these soldiers are coming back to their communities and people are seeing just how high the price is that these young people are paying."
.
Responding to the large number of amputations, scientists at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Wednesday announced a $7.2 million research program over five years to design more functional prosthetic limbs. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is paying for the work.
.
Data compiled by the U.S. Senate, and included in the 2005 defense appropriations bill in support of a request for increased funding for the care of amputees at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, revealed that 6 percent of those wounded in Iraq have required amputations, compared with a rate of 3 percent for past wars.
.
Dr. Roy Aaron, of the Brown Medical School, said the current Veterans Affairs medical system "literally cannot handle the load" of amputees.
.
"Amputee research has never been a high priority" because it's not "fashionable," said Aaron, who is heading the Brown-MIT effort. "Iraq has changed that."
.
Stephan Fihn, the acting chief of research and development for the Veterans Affairs Department, said that military officials were concerned about the expected flood of amputees but that the system would "absolutely, without a doubt" be able to handle them.
.
"Returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan are our highest priority now," he said.
.
The Brown-MIT project will explore methods to build better titanium prosthetic limbs, extend bone stumps for tighter attachment of prosthetics and use computer technology to develop prosthetic devices that can be controlled by brain sensors implanted in patients. However, the advances will not be ready for years, and many Iraq veterans will not immediately benefit, Aaron said.
.
In Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Atul Gawande, a journalist



See more of the world that matters - click here for home delivery of the International Herald Tribune.
< < Back to Start of Article Amputation percentage alarms doctors

BOSTON U.S. troops wounded in Iraq have required limb amputations at twice the rate of past wars, and as many as 20 percent have suffered head and neck wounds that may require a lifetime of care, according to new data that gives the clearest picture yet of the severity of battlefield wounds.
.
The data are the grisly flip side of the improvement in battlefield medicine that has saved combatants who would have died in the past. Only one in 10 U.S. troops wounded in Iraq has died, the lowest rate of any war in U.S. history.
.
But those who survive have much more grievous wounds. Bulletproof Kevlar vests protect soldiers' bodies but not their limbs, as insurgent snipers and makeshift bombs tear off arms and legs and rip into faces and necks.
.
More than half of those wounded sustain wounds so serious they cannot return to duty, according to Pentagon statistics.
.
Much attention has focused on the 1,000-plus soldiers killed in Iraq, but the Pentagon had released little information on the 9,765 soldiers wounded as of this week.
.
"The death rate isn't great compared to Vietnam, Korea and World War II," said Dr. G. Richard Holt, a head and neck surgeon at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio and a retired U.S. Army surgeon who served as a civilian adviser in Iraq earlier this year. "But these soldiers are coming back to their communities and people are seeing just how high the price is that these young people are paying."
.
Responding to the large number of amputations, scientists at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Wednesday announced a $7.2 million research program over five years to design more functional prosthetic limbs. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is paying for the work.
.
Data compiled by the U.S. Senate, and included in the 2005 defense appropriations bill in support of a request for increased funding for the care of amputees at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, revealed that 6 percent of those wounded in Iraq have required amputations, compared with a rate of 3 percent for past wars.
.
Dr. Roy Aaron, of the Brown Medical School, said the current Veterans Affairs medical system "literally cannot handle the load" of amputees.
.
"Amputee research has never been a high priority" because it's not "fashionable," said Aaron, who is heading the Brown-MIT effort. "Iraq has changed that."
.
Stephan Fihn, the acting chief of research and development for the Veterans Affairs Department, said that military officials were concerned about the expected flood of amputees but that the system would "absolutely, without a doubt" be able to handle them.
.
"Returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan are our highest priority now," he said.
.
The Brown-MIT project will explore methods to build better titanium prosthetic limbs, extend bone stumps for tighter attachment of prosthetics and use computer technology to develop prosthetic devices that can be controlled by brain sensors implanted in patients. However, the advances will not be ready for years, and many Iraq veterans will not immediately benefit, Aaron said.
.
In Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Atul Gawande, a journalist and Harvard surgeon, writes: "The nation's military surgical teams are under tremendous pressure, but they have performed remarkably in this war. They have transformed the strategy for the treatment of war casualties."
.
In World War II, about 30 percent of those wounded died, and in Vietnam the figure was 24 percent. In Afghanistan, as in Iraq, the mortality rate has been 10 percent.
.
Gawande and others credited improvements made after Vietnam, when medics noted that most soldiers who made it to surgical facilities survived. In Iraq, military field surgical teams work just behind front lines, with four surgeons and a nursing team able to erect a four-bed surgical unit in one hour. In the current conflict, the average time it takes a wounded soldier to go from the battlefield to front-line care and on to full-service military hospitals in Germany, Kuwait and Spain has been about four days, compared with weeks in previous wars.
.
In addition to amputations, many soldiers making this journey have head and neck wounds, frequently wounded by improvised explosive devices essentially remote-controlled bombs planted in the ground.
.
Lieutenant Colonel Michael Xydakis, a military surgeon, released a little-noticed study in September at a medical conference of head and neck surgeons. He found that over a 14-month period, about one in five U.S. soldiers treated at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, which handles most Iraq casualties, had head or neck wounds.
.
These wounds, surgeons said, have long-term implications, with many involving irreversible brain damage, breathing and eating impairments, blindness, or severe disfiguration. The study prompted the military to add a full-time head and neck surgeon to a Baghdad field hospital.
.
"These folks are just starting to come back, and they may require care for a long, long time," Holt said.
.Amputation percentage alarms doctors

BOSTON U.S. troops wounded in Iraq have required limb amputations at twice the rate of past wars, and as many as 20 percent have suffered head and neck wounds that may require a lifetime of care, according to new data that gives the clearest picture yet of the severity of battlefield wounds.
.
The data are the grisly flip side of the improvement in battlefield medicine that has saved combatants who would have died in the past. Only one in 10 U.S. troops wounded in Iraq has died, the lowest rate of any war in U.S. history.
.
But those who survive have much more grievous wounds. Bulletproof Kevlar vests protect soldiers' bodies but not their limbs, as insurgent snipers and makeshift bombs tear off arms and legs and rip into faces and necks.
.
More than half of those wounded sustain wounds so serious they cannot return to duty, according to Pentagon statistics.
.
Much attention has focused on the 1,000-plus soldiers killed in Iraq, but the Pentagon had released little information on the 9,765 soldiers wounded as of this week.
.
"The death rate isn't great compared to Vietnam, Korea and World War II," said Dr. G. Richard Holt, a head and neck surgeon at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio and a retired U.S. Army surgeon who served as a civilian adviser in Iraq earlier this year. "But these soldiers are coming back to their communities and people are seeing just how high the price is that these young people are paying."
.
Responding to the large number of amputations, scientists at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Wednesday announced a $7.2 million research program over five years to design more functional prosthetic limbs. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is paying for the work.
.
Data compiled by the U.S. Senate, and included in the 2005 defense appropriations bill in support of a request for increased funding for the care of amputees at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, revealed that 6 percent of those wounded in Iraq have required amputations, compared with a rate of 3 percent for past wars.
.
Dr. Roy Aaron, of the Brown Medical School, said the current Veterans Affairs medical system "literally cannot handle the load" of amputees.
.
"Amputee research has never been a high priority" because it's not "fashionable," said Aaron, who is heading the Brown-MIT effort. "Iraq has changed that."
.
Stephan Fihn, the acting chief of research and development for the Veterans Affairs Department, said that military officials were concerned about the expected flood of amputees but that the system would "absolutely, without a doubt" be able to handle them.
.
"Returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan are our highest priority now," he said.
.
The Brown-MIT project will explore methods to build better titanium prosthetic limbs, extend bone stumps for tighter attachment of prosthetics and use computer technology to develop prosthetic devices that can be controlled by brain sensors implanted in patients. However, the advances will not be ready for years, and many Iraq veterans will not immediately benefit, Aaron said.
.
In Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Atul Gawande, a journalist and Harvard surgeon, writes: "The nation's military surgical teams are under tremendous pressure, but they have performed remarkably in this war. They have transformed the strategy for the treatment of war casualties."
.
In World War II, about 30 percent of those wounded died, and in Vietnam the figure was 24 percent. In Afghanistan, as in Iraq, the mortality rate has been 10 percent.
.
Gawande and others credited improvements made after Vietnam, when medics noted that most soldiers who made it to surgical facilities survived. In Iraq, military field surgical teams work just behind front lines, with four surgeons and a nursing team able to erect a four-bed surgical unit in one hour. In the current conflict, the average time it takes a wounded soldier to go from the battlefield to front-line care and on to full-service military hospitals in Germany, Kuwait and Spain has been about four days, compared with weeks in previous wars.
.
In addition to amputations, many soldiers making this journey have head and neck wounds, frequently wounded by improvised explosive devices essentially remote-controlled bombs planted in the ground.
.
Lieutenant Colonel Michael Xydakis, a military surgeon, released a little-noticed study in September at a medical conference of head and neck surgeons. He found that over a 14-month period, about one in five U.S. soldiers treated at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, which handles most Iraq casualties, had head or neck wounds.
.
These wounds, surgeons said, have long-term implications, with many involving irreversible brain damage, breathing and eating impairments, blindness, or severe disfiguration. The study prompted the military to add a full-time head and neck surgeon to a Baghdad field hospital.
.
"These folks are just starting to come back, and they may require care for a long, long time," Holt said.
.Amputation percentage alarms doctors

BOSTON U.S. troops wounded in Iraq have required limb amputations at twice the rate of past wars, and as many as 20 percent have suffered head and neck wounds that may require a lifetime of care, according to new data that gives the clearest picture yet of the severity of battlefield wounds.
.
The data are the grisly flip side of the improvement in battlefield medicine that has saved combatants who would have died in the past. Only one in 10 U.S. troops wounded in Iraq has died, the lowest rate of any war in U.S. history.
.
But those who survive have much more grievous wounds. Bulletproof Kevlar vests protect soldiers' bodies but not their limbs, as insurgent snipers and makeshift bombs tear off arms and legs and rip into faces and necks.
.
More than half of those wounded sustain wounds so serious they cannot return to duty, according to Pentagon statistics.
.
Much attention has focused on the 1,000-plus soldiers killed in Iraq, but the Pentagon had released little information on the 9,765 soldiers wounded as of this week.
.
"The death rate isn't great compared to Vietnam, Korea and World War II," said Dr. G. Richard Holt, a head and neck surgeon at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio and a retired U.S. Army surgeon who served as a civilian adviser in Iraq earlier this year. "But these soldiers are coming back to their communities and people are seeing just how high the price is that these young people are paying."
.
Responding to the large number of amputations, scientists at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Wednesday announced a $7.2 million research program over five years to design more functional prosthetic limbs. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is paying for the work.
.
Data compiled by the U.S. Senate, and included in the 2005 defense appropriations bill in support of a request for increased funding for the care of amputees at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, revealed that 6 percent of those wounded in Iraq have required amputations, compared with a rate of 3 percent for past wars.
.
Dr. Roy Aaron, of the Brown Medical School, said the current Veterans Affairs medical system "literally cannot handle the load" of amputees.
.
"Amputee research has never been a high priority" because it's not "fashionable," said Aaron, who is heading the Brown-MIT effort. "Iraq has changed that."
.
Stephan Fihn, the acting chief of research and development for the Veterans Affairs Department, said that military officials were concerned about the expected flood of amputees but that the system would "absolutely, without a doubt" be able to handle them.
.
"Returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan are our highest priority now," he said.
.
The Brown-MIT project will explore methods to build better titanium prosthetic limbs, extend bone stumps for tighter attachment of prosthetics and use computer technology to develop prosthetic devices that can be controlled by brain sensors implanted in patients. However, the advances will not be ready for years, and many Iraq veterans will not immediately benefit, Aaron said.
.
In Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Atul Gawande, a journalist and Harvard surgeon, writes: "The nation's military surgical teams are under tremendous pressure, but they have performed remarkably in this war. They have transformed the strategy for the treatment of war casualties."
.
In World War II, about 30 percent of those wounded died, and in Vietnam the figure was 24 percent. In Afghanistan, as in Iraq, the mortality rate has been 10 percent.
.
Gawande and others credited improvements made after Vietnam, when medics noted that most soldiers who made it to surgical facilities survived. In Iraq, military field surgical teams work just behind front lines, with four surgeons and a nursing team able to erect a four-bed surgical unit in one hour. In the current conflict, the average time it takes a wounded soldier to go from the battlefield to front-line care and on to full-service military hospitals in Germany, Kuwait and Spain has been about four days, compared with weeks in previous wars.
.
In addition to amputations, many soldiers making this journey have head and neck wounds, frequently wounded by improvised explosive devices essentially remote-controlled bombs planted in the ground.
.
Lieutenant Colonel Michael Xydakis, a military surgeon, released a little-noticed study in September at a medical conference of head and neck surgeons. He found that over a 14-month period, about one in five U.S. soldiers treated at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, which handles most Iraq casualties, had head or neck wounds.
.
These wounds, surgeons said, have long-term implications, with many involving irreversible brain damage, breathing and eating impairments, blindness, or severe disfiguration. The study prompted the military to add a full-time head and neck surgeon to a

A warrior's personal struggle (12/9/04)

A warrior's personal struggle

By JESSIE MILLIGAN

Knight Ridder Newspapers


subhed or reader: Sister keeps journal of her brother's painful ordeal after he was wounded in Iraq
She dreams she is standing in the hallway of the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., when the doors slam open and voices shout: "Clear the hall!"

She jumps back as medics rush in with a fallen Marine on a gurney.

This happens over and over and over, the doors slamming, the shouts reverberating each time another shattered young man or woman arrives.

Then Lezleigh Kleibrink, 30, of Grapevine, Texas, wakes and goes about her day as a stay-at-home mom, a scrapbooker and keeper of family history.

She turns on her computer. Since September, she's been keeping an online journal so friends and family can keep track of the progress of her brother, Marine Cpl. Casey Owens, 23, of Houston.

Owens, on his second tour of duty in Iraq, was riding in an unarmored Humvee on Sept. 20, when an explosion ripped into it, tearing apart one of his legs, breaking bones and embedding about 200 pieces of shrapnel in his body.

His sister's electronic journal crackles with insight into one family's journey through the corridors of nightmares and dreams.

Sept. 21, 2004: "Donn, my step-dad, got a call from Twentynine Palms (Marine base) Tuesday afternoon. A sergeant read him an e-mail that Casey had been injured in an accident, that he had his leg amputated, that he had shrapnel in the neck and was going to be moved to Germany. And that was it."

The family scrambles to get overseas to see for themselves the seriousness of Owens' injuries.

Kleibrink and her mother, Janna Dunkel, turn to a friend, Houston restaurateur and AM radio talk show host Edd Hendee. He calls House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, and in less than four hours, Kleibrink and her mother have passports. Dunkel tells her employers at an inorganic chemistry lab, where she is a secretary, and at Target, where she is a clerk at night, that she will be gone. That night, mother and daughter fly from Houston to Paris to Frankfurt.

Sept. 24 and 25: "We were able to go in and see him. It is not Casey. He is swollen, everything is broken. His mandible had been broken, and wired, therefore his face is twice the size of what it was. His nose is black with tubes coming out of it. His body is one big abrasion. He has several hundred stitches all over him, tubes on both sides of his lungs, exterior rods in his right arm and left leg to stabilize the fractures and his right leg is gone below the knee. We are living a nightmare ...

"We thought we were going to lose Casey last night, each time he coded. We have two chaplains with us who have been praying non-stop over him and with us ...

"This afternoon's prayer is for the 55 service men and women being brought into the hospital today alone. Mom and I watched and prayed as we watched each man brought into the ICU ward, and prayed for the staff who jumped into action as each medic crew brought another. This just brought home that THERE IS A WAR OUT THERE."

A drug-induced coma keeps Owens out of pain. He is at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, where the recently injured are stabilized before being sent to the United States.

"Please pray that my Mom can have the strength to watch Casey learn of the news of his physical state, and the loss of the Marine he was with. It will be a horrifying moment that Hollywood could never re-create - pray that she can make it through without her heart breaking."

Owens' sister types these lines into an online journal on a Web site, www.caringbridge.org/tx/caseyowens, so family and friends can keep up with his progress.

She writes with desperation: "Please share this site with EVERY person you know, so that we can have him covered with prayer worldwide."

And, more frequently, she writes with optimism, finding strength in any positive sign. Owens barely lifts his eyebrows in recognition of her, and Kleibrink writes: "THIS WAS AWESOME, made me want to cry!!!"

A doctor pulls Owens' family aside and tells them his left leg probably will need to be amputated as well.

On Sept. 28, Owens is carried aboard a hospital plane and sent to the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md.

Kleibrink and her mother accompany him home. They do not sleep for 36 hours.

For a moment, he is temporarily off sedation and awake.

He asks if his face is OK. His sister says, "Yes."

He asks if his arms are OK. She says "Yes."

He asks if his legs are all right. She says, "Everything will be fine."

His mother and a surgeon later explain the details.

Sept. 29: "He is very disoriented, frustrated, and PO'ed, for lack of better words, at everyone," Kleibrink writes.

"The next day, surgeons amputate his left leg below the knee.

Oct. 2: A few days later, Owens shocks his family.

"We were surprised when, after a lot of writing it down so we understood him, that he asked for a camcorder. He wanted to document his progress from start to finish, so that he could show his (future) children how far he'd come and how good he'd had it. This just made us weep."

The ward around him is filled with men and women, some even more severely injured than Owens.

His sister begins to believe he is going to make it. She makes plans to contact Mattress Mac in Houston for help in getting special furniture into her mom's house so that Owens can stay there when he gets out. She makes plans to contact the "Monster Garage" TV show for help in outfitting her brother's car, and she makes a note to write "Designer's Challenge" on HGTV to see if they can help.

The night before, Owens woke up in a panic.

"At one point he asked if he had been kidnapped. He said he didn't believe 'them' when they talked to him, and they were laughing at him."

Patients often hallucinate under the influence of narcotic painkillers, says a nurse, who tells the family stories of the injured who claim that Iraqis are outside the window or yell for everyone to get down fast.

Owens hallucinates for days.

Oct. 5: "The standard scale for pain is 0 to 10 with 0 being no pain and 10 being unbearable. Casey has surpassed 10, which resulted in him being sedated all over to let his body heal, instead of dealing with the pain. He woke up for a short period around lunchtime only to scream in pain, yell at mom and let me know I was an idiot - some things never change between siblings :) He shortly thereafter was knocked back out."

Oct. 6: "It is very tough trying to tell a hallucinating 6-foot, 2-inch Marine that he has to stay still or he'll pull all his tubes out," his sister writes.

Oct. 7: "Casey had a very sad moment today, as we believe he had a moment of clarity of the explosion and the weeks before it ... he woke up sobbing to his core, telling Mom that he had seen one of his friends die."

The family found out later that the friend, a Marine one week shy of his 21st birthday, had indeed died in Owens' arms.

"Please pray for peace of mind for him, that he can sleep dreamless sleep so his body can heal."

Oct. 9: "He and I have watched a movie today, and I'm going to rent some more for him (made him watch one of my chick flicks, poor guy)."

The celebrity visitors start showing up just after Kleibrink returns to Grapevine to spend time with her husband, Kevin, and 3-year-old son, Matthew, who has been looked after by Kevin's mom.

Oct. 10: "Casey is really suffering from phantom pains in his legs. This is the phenomenon in amputees where the brain is still registering that the limbs are still there. He feels that his toes are all curled up, that they itch, and that the arch of his foot feels on fire."

He sits up in a wheelchair just 18 days after the explosion.

Oct. 15: "He had a couple guys come in - (actor) Rob Schneider and (country singer) Neal McCoy! ... They visited with Casey and took some pictures - Rob signed his with 'You can do it!' just like his character from 'The Water Boy,' which is right up Casey's alley, as he loves Rob!"

Oct. 16: "And he also had another visitor - Jon Stewart!! Casey loves Comedy Central, so between he and Rob Schneider this could not be more perfect! Mom said he was VERY sincere and genuinely nice and stayed to talk with Casey for a good 15 minutes ... Mom videotaped them. Man, did I leave at the wrong time!"

Oct. 19: "Casey is still waiting for a bed at Walter Reed (the Army medical center where he will go into physical therapy and learn to wear artificial legs). The hospital is so packed that they literally do not have space for him in the amputee ward right now."

The ups and downs continue. Owens finally gets a bed at Walter Reed. On Oct. 31, his mother rents a car and brings her son to a nearby mall, where she pushes him in a wheelchair. The next day, Kleibrink writes, "They were both glad to get out, but it was a very emotional trip experiencing the world with this new challenge."

Dunkel has spent seven weeks by her son's side. Kleibrink spent three weeks with her brother in the hospital and periodically returns to visit him in Washington, D.C. For Christmas, the family plans to travel from Texas to the East Coast in a recreational vehicle.

"Won't that be fun?" Kleibrink writes. "We want to spend Christmas together as a family."

The visits and the journal will continue as long as it takes, Kleibrink says.

Nov. 9: President and Mrs. Bush visit Owens in his room.

Owens is expected to be in the hospital at least several more months.

After that, he can come home to Texas and start a new life.

Soldiers' war wounds run deep (12/9/04)

Soldiers' war wounds run deep

Fewer soldiers dying, but more are severely hurt
By Marilynn Marchione, Associated Press

For every American soldier killed in Iraq, nine others have been wounded and survived -- the highest rate of any war in U.S. history.
It isn't that their injuries were less serious, a new report says. In fact, some young soldiers and Marines have had faces, arms and legs blown off and are now returning home badly maimed. But they have survived thanks, in part, to armor-like vests and fast treatment from doctors on the move with surgical kits in backpacks.

[partial text only; follow link for full article]

On the Net:

New England Journal: www.nejm.org

Defense Department: http://www.defenselink.mil

Directorate for Information Operations and Reports:

http://web1.whs.osd.mil/mmid/casualty/castop.htm

and http://web1.whs.osd.mil/mmid/casualty/WCPRINCIPAL.pdf

Project aims to give amputees better mobility, less discomfort (12/9/04)

Project aims to give amputees better mobility, less discomfort
By Associated Press, 12/9/2004 12:50


PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) A Providence-based research consortium has received $7.2 million in funding for a project to restore arm and leg function to amputees, particularly those who lost limbs in wars.

The researchers from Brown University, the Providence VA Medical Center and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology hope to develop biohybrid limbs that would allow amputees to use nerves and brain signals to move the arm or leg. The aim is to give amputees better mobility and control of their limbs. It should also reduce the discomfort and infections common with current prosthetics.

[partial text only; follow link for full article]

Project looks to medicine, engineering to aid amputees

Project looks to medicine, engineering to aid amputees
01:40 AM EST on Thursday, December 9, 2004
BY FELICE J. FREYER
Journal Medical Writer

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has selected a Providence-based research consortium for a $7.2-million effort to create lifelike limbs for Iraq war amputees -- by melding live tissue with mechanical devices.

The researchers hope to develop biohybrid limbs that would allow amputees to control prosthetic arms and legs with muscle and nerve cells. They will try to lengthen bones, regenerate cartilage, blend skin with metal and power artificial joints with implants in the brain and microchips in the muscle.

[partial text only; follow link for full article]

Funds Leading-Edge Limb-Loss Research in Providence (12/8/04)

VA Funds Leading-Edge Limb-Loss Research in Providence
The Department of Veteran’s Affairs has awarded $7.2 million to the Providence VA Medical Center to establish a broad-based research program to restore natural function to amputees. The chief goal is to create “biohybrid” limbs that meld human tissue with a prosthesis controlled by an amputee’s own muscles and brain signals. The Providence VA Medical Center is working with Brown University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to improve the lives of amputees, particularly Iraq war veterans.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — With $7.2 million in funding from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), the Providence VA Medical Center, Brown University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have begun a five-year, multidisciplinary research project to restore arm and leg function to amputees.

At the end of the project, scientists hope to have created “biohybrid” limbs that will use regenerated tissue, lengthened bone, titanium prosthetics and implantable sensors that allow an amputee to use nerves and brain signals to move the arm or leg. The aim is to give amputees – particularly war veterans – better mobility and control of their limbs and reduce the discomfort and infections common with current prosthetics.

[partial text only; follow link for full article]

'Life over limb' doctrine prevails for Navy surgeons behind Fallujah's frontlines (12/8/04)

'Life over limb' doctrine prevails for Navy surgeons behind Fallujah's frontlines
By Katarina Kratovac, Associated Press, 12/8/2004 13:59


NEAR FALLUJAH, Iraq (AP) Doctors with Bravo Surgical Company known as the ''Cheaters of Death'' fight their own quiet battles every day against the horrifying wounds of war.

''These injuries we never see at home,'' said one of the surgeons, Dr. Matthew Camuso of Los Angeles. ''I mostly treated gunshot wounds and stabbing, but these injuries don't compare you just don't have people blown up back home.''

Dr. Michael Mazurek, an orthopedic surgeon and trauma specialist from Philadelphia, said he has seen ''some horrific injuries'' in the 90 days since coming to Iraq. ''The tremendous force of the IED can devastate a torso,'' he says, referring to a roadside bomb.

[partial text only; follow link for full article]

Young Iraq war veterans dealing with injuries with grace and courage (12/1/04) Transcript

Profile: Young Iraq war veterans dealing with injuries with grace and courage
NTLN000020041202e0c10000b
915 Words
01 December 2004
NBC News: Nightly News
English
(c) Copyright 2004, National Broadcasting Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
TOM BROKAW, anchor:

We have more tonight on the war in Iraq. This time, the human toll. We often report on the Americans killed. They now number 1,252 since the start of the war. But not always mentioned are the wounded, more than 9500 in all. About a year ago, NBC's Brian Williams met some of them at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington. This week, Brian went back to meet more of America's bravely wounded who are in many ways learning how to live all over again.


WILLIAMS: Doc, real name Joe, is all of 22 and remembers the day, remembers the convoy, that changed his world forever.

Mr. WORLEY: The day I got injured was on September 17th, and like I said, we had roughly a week or so left.

WILLIAMS: Doc Worley was with a Marine platoon in Fallujah when a vehicle in front of his was blown up.

Mr. WORLEY: It broke my heart. It broke my heart when--when I heard it. You just, I mean, you just--we were facing the other way looking behind us, and I just hear booom, and I was like...

WILLIAMS: He grabbed his medical bag, ran a few yards and was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade. It did not explode but took off his left leg. He was then shot six times.

Fallen warriors face obstacles getting back in action (12/5/04)

Fallen warriors face obstacles getting back in action (opinion)
By David Wood
david.wood@newhouse.com
December 5, 2004


Chuck Bartles took heart when President Bush pinned a Purple Heart to his chest this year, lauding him for courage and determination despite grievous wounds. Sgt. Bartles, then struggling to recover from having his right arm blown off in Iraq, felt even better when Bush made a stirring speech. Just because a soldier has lost a leg or an arm in combat, the president said, doesn't mean he's useless. "Today, if wounded service members want to remain in uniform and can do the job, the military tries to help them stay."

Easy words. Inaccurate words.

Bartles was wounded in October 2003 by a roadside bomb blast that killed a fellow soldier. A civil affairs specialist with a master's degree, fluency in Russian and a Bronze Star for heroism in battle, he's the kind of man the Army would want to keep. He sweated for months to qualify for duty. This summer, his Army doctors finally certified him fit. His commander wanted him back.

Jubilant, Bartles re-enlisted. The next day he got a form letter from the Army. "Your medical condition prevents satisfactory performance of duty," it said. The verdict: "permanent disability." Bartles, 26, is fighting that judgment. His reserve unit, the 418th Civil Affairs Battalion of Belton, Mo., returns to Iraq in April. "I am going with them, no doubt about that," Bartles vows.

Combat in Iraq and Afghanistan is producing a parade of soldiers, Marines and others -- about three a week -- who have suffered traumatic or surgical amputation of at least one limb. Many are driven by duty, professionalism or a burning devotion to their buddies to return to their jobs. New surgical techniques and high-tech artificial limbs have enabled surgeons, prosthetists and therapists at Walter Reed Army Medical Center to bring them to higher levels of functioning than ever before.

But the Army is torn between its profound emotional commitment to these fallen warriors and its cold mission of providing fit, tough soldiers for war. And like much of society, it has been biased against amputees and other disabled people, according to current officers and retired military amputees. Now, it is trying to throw off those preconceptions while treating all soldiers fairly.

It is a battle. In a series of high-level meetings this fall, senior officers and federal officials were unable to write a clear new policy for helping amputees. "It was like pushing a noodle uphill," said Lt. Gen. Franklin "Buster" Hagenbeck, the Army's deputy chief of staff for personnel. In frustration, Hagenbeck, who commanded U.S. forces in Afghanistan in 2002, pledged to personally review the case of any military amputee who feels he has been treated unfairly.

But it may not be so easy. An amputee faces a two-step process to get back to duty. First, a medical evaluation board assesses how capable he is of resuming his duties. Later, a physical evaluation board decides whether he has demonstrated he can perform his particular job.

The board's job "is not to assist the soldier in furthering his career," said Dennis E. Brower, legal adviser to the Physical Disability Agency, which operates the board. "All job requirements are listed in Army regulations. All soldiers' cases are adjudicated exactly the same.

"Emotional responses," Brower said, "are not appropriate."

It was this board that turned down Bartles' application, despite his doctors' and commanding officer's enthusiastic recommendations, for approval to return to his job. While Bartles is appealing the decision, Army officials said they have no choice but to apply the existing regulations.

"We try to be consistent," said Brower, a former Army officer. "Say a severely burned individual comes to us and says, 'I am disfigured and can't run because my muscles are contracted, but I'd like to be a soldier, too, would you give me the same special treatment you are supposedly giving to the amputees?'

"We cannot be looking at people differently that one type of injury is more worthy than another."

Wood writes for Newhouse News Service.