{"id":259,"date":"2011-05-06T18:34:09","date_gmt":"2011-05-06T18:34:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thanassiscambanis.com\/sipa\/?p=259"},"modified":"2011-05-06T18:34:09","modified_gmt":"2011-05-06T18:34:09","slug":"one-at-a-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thanassiscambanis.com\/sipa\/2011\/05\/one-at-a-time\/","title":{"rendered":"One at a Time"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Schoffield Barracks, HI--Specialist Mathew "Doc" Kenney demonstrates to a group of medics how to apply a tourniquet. He is preparing for his next deployment, to Afghanistan. Credit: Jonathan Levinson<\/p><\/div>\n

BY MIMI WELLS<\/p>\n

Specialist Mathew \u201cDoc\u201d Kenney sat in the backseat of the third heavily armored MRAP, near the window.\u00a0 It was around midnight on Easter Sunday, 2009, and the four-car convoy was returning home from escorting a group of contractors to a neighboring base.\u00a0 The soldiers were nearing the halfway point in an uneventful deployment to Bayjii in northern Iraq and had seen very little fighting.\u00a0 Save for the rumbling of their massive vehicles on the transport road the countryside was still.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

They were joking about Star Wars when Kenney, a medic on his first deployment, saw the light slash the sky.\u00a0 The boom that followed was so loud that for a moment, the soldiers in the third car thought they had been hit. Frantically they called out to each another.\u00a0 One by one they realized they were fine. But Kenney, 25, could see that the vehicle behind them\u2014the \u201ctrail\u201d truck\u2014was smoking and splayed awkwardly across the road.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Kenney grabbed the radio.\u00a0 \u201cTrail truck\u2019s down!\u00a0 Trail truck\u2019s down!\u201d he screamed.\u00a0 His driver pulled the MRAP back around to the mangled vehicle.\u00a0 Kenney opened his door and stepped into the pitch-black darkness.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Except for treating their interpreter for heat stroke, this was his first emergency in Iraq.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s what medics call that blind leap of faith,\u201d he said ten months later, sitting in the living room of the home he shares with his wife and stepdaughter on the Schofield Barracks Army base in Hawaii.\u00a0 \u201cYou\u2019re stepping out of that vehicle and going into the unknown where something has just exploded, and you\u2019re going to be the first one going in.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A quick scan of the truck revealed that the two back doors had been blown off, but the soldier seated in the rear was uninjured, and incredibly, had started pulling security duty.\u00a0 Sergeant Justin Minisall sat dazed in the passenger seat.\u00a0 His face was cut up, and Kenney thought his leg was broken, but Minisall was stable and responsive. Kenney moved towards the midsection of the vehicle where the gunner, Specialist Michael Anaya, was slumped over in his turret, unconscious.\u00a0 His leg was ripped open from his buttocks to the middle of his thigh.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Kenney jumped into the truck and yanked Anaya out of his restraints.\u00a0 Blood poured from his open leg and Kenny reached in to pinch the artery. He moved quickly, with mechanical precision.\u00a0 Anaya, was the platoon favorite\u2014a friendly, fun-spirited twenty-three year old from Crestview, Florida.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

By now the other men from his truck had jumped out and were shifting through the wreckage.\u00a0 Soldiers from the other trucks were organizing a security cordon.<\/p>\n

The platoon leader screamed at Kenney to hurry up with Anaya and get to the driver\u2019s seat, where Private Brendan \u201cRocco\u201d Marrocco, 22, lay in a pool of exploded blood and bone.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Rocco\u2019s messed up pretty bad,\u201d said the platoon leader.\u00a0 \u201cYou got to get to him.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Kenney looked up from the middle of the vehicle, where he crouched over Anaya\u2019s unconscious body.\u00a0 His uniform was covered in the gunner\u2019s blood.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got one at a time, man.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He stabilized Anaya, and shouted for the team leader to come and stay with him.\u00a0 Then he jumped out of the truck and ran around to the driver\u2019s side.\u00a0 He and another soldier pulled Marrocco out.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was just, he was just a stump,\u201d said Kenney, pausing between the words.\u00a0 \u201cI mean there was just his trunk and a head.\u00a0 He had one leg barely dangling on.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For the next fifteen minutes Kenney worked \u201cin robot mode;\u201d running back and forth between the injured, without emotion.\u00a0 He was afraid that any expression would cause the rest of the soldiers to descend into panic.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cIs everyone OK?\u00a0 Is everything OK?\u201d\u00a0 The men asked and Kenney lied.\u00a0 \u201cYeah, it\u2019s fine.\u00a0 We\u2019re good,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He was not sure Marrocco would make it; in 2009 no man had survived having both arms and legs ripped from his body in either Iraq or Afghanistan.\u00a0 Kenney\u2019s training told him that Anaya had the best chance among the wounded, but as he worked to stop Marrocco\u2019s blood from spilling out of his extremities he did not think of odds.\u00a0 He thought only of the medevac helicopters.\u00a0 The explosion had hit the convoy just eight miles from the front gate of their base. \u201cWhere the hell are the birds?\u201d Kenney screamed to himself.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Doctors call the first 60 minutes after a traumatic injury the, \u201cgolden hour.\u201d\u00a0 If emergency responders can get the victim to a well-equipped facility within an hour of the incident there is a high likelihood of survival.\u00a0 In Iraq in 2009, 95% of soldiers survived their injuries when they were rescued in the first hour, according to U.S. Central Command.\u00a0 For every moment outside of that window, the chances of survival plummet.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In 2009, the average medevac helicopter took 55 minutes to reach critically wounded soldiers.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Fifteen minutes turned into thirty.\u00a0 Forty.\u00a0 Then, fifty.\u00a0 An hour passed.\u00a0 Dilapidated power lines strung above the road popped and snapped.\u00a0 The soldiers were jumpy.\u00a0 Kenney moved through the darkness, kneeling down to inject morphine, check vital signs, and monitor for shock.\u00a0 His adrenaline turned to frustration, and then to anger.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Finally, 80 minutes after his radio call, two medevac helicopters arrived.\u00a0\u00a0 Kenney spoke to the sergeant in charge of the evacuation team.\u00a0 \u201cI was just like, this is what\u2019s going on.\u00a0 Bam. Bam. Bam.\u00a0 I was probably talking 100 miles a minute,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Marrocco was loaded into one helicopter.\u00a0 Minisall, the sergeant with the broken leg, and Anaya were put in the other.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cWe separated,\u201d said Kenney, \u201cand then everything started flooding in.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Investigators studied the crater left by the blast.\u00a0 Someone traced the wires that had triggered the explosion into the field along the roadside.\u00a0 Kenney canvassed the area, looking for Marrocco\u2019s body parts.\u00a0 He found a glove, with a perfectly formed hand inside and put it in his pocket.\u00a0 The other soldiers looked at him like he was crazy.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

At 5:30 in the morning the men arrived back at their base.\u00a0 A crowd of soldiers who had been listening in on the radios all night stood waiting for them.\u00a0 Kenney was the last to get out of the truck.\u00a0 When the soldiers saw his uniform, soaked in blood, some began to cry.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There was no word of Marrocco\u2019s or Anaya\u2019s status.\u00a0 Kenney walked to the aide station.\u00a0 He handed Marrocco\u2019s body parts to the staff sergeant.\u00a0 Then he took off his helmet threw it across the room.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cYou take off your heavy gear and then you\u2019re light, and then you\u2019re pissed,\u201d he said. His eyes filled with tears, and he wrung his hands together.\u00a0 \u201cYou\u2019re pissed that that had to happen, that it had to happen to your guys.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

An hour later, the platoon sergeant gathered the 24 soldiers of Alpha Company together in the grey dawn outside the aide station.\u00a0\u00a0 Minisall and Marrocco had survived.\u00a0 Michael Anaya was dead.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Schoffield Barracks, HI--Specialist Mathew "Doc" Kenney with his wife and stepdaughter take a break from back-to-school shopping in an aisle at Kmart. Credit: Jonathan Levinson<\/p><\/div>