No routine at hospital since 9/11

This is the fifth in a series of stories tracking Nevada Air National Guard units during a training mission in Europe. Two squadrons - civil engineering and medical - from the 152nd Airlift Wing are doing their annual two-week training in Germany. The Nevada Appeal will tell some of their stories.

LANDSTUHL, GERMANY - The largest American hospital outside the country is Landstuhl Medical Center. It is the first stop for most of the seriously wounded soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Thirty-four members of the 152nd Airlift Wing's medical squadron who are doing a very hands-on, two-week training at the hospital.

They offered a much-needed relief to the center's emotionally drained staff. We had stopped in for a tour. Because of a congressional visit, we were told to come back the next day. But first we were given a briefing by hospital spokesperson Marie Shaw-Fievez.

Landstuhl staff are able to roughly forecast the number of incoming wounded by watching news reports of battles or bombings, she said.

"You see?" she asked, holding up the latest edition of Stars & Stripes.

"We know that next week we will be very busy."

The banner headline read "U.S. plans major offensive in Najaf."

After 20 years at the hospital, Shaw-Fievez has seen many increases in the patient population. More than 4,000 injured soldiers were treated there during operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. Sailors wounded in the bombing of the USS Cole were treated at Landstuhl in October 2000.

Americans and Kenyans hurt in the bombing of the U.S. embassy in Nairobi were flown there.

"We have had dramatic increases in the past," said Shaw-Fievez, who is originally from Belgium. "But after a month or two it will usually return to the routine. Well, after 9/11, there is no routine."

Landstuhl usually has 12 beds in their intensive care unit. Since the start of the War on Terror they have increased to 20.

So far from Operation Iraqi Freedom 14,633 seriously wounded soldiers have been treated at Landstuhl. They are flown into nearby Ramstein Air Force Base and driven to Landstuhl in olive-green buses.

On Thursday there were 42 in-patients and 221 out-patients being treated for injuries from time in Iraq.

Because of weapons like rocket-propelled grenades, improvised explosive devices (road-side bombs) and the increased use of body armor, Landstuhl staff see a lot of shrapnel wounds, burns and injuries to eyes and extremities, Shaw-Fievez said.

Staff talk about "decreased mortality but increased morbidity" meaning soldiers survive because their vital organs are protected by armor but more of them are losing limbs or are horribly burned.

Landstuhl treats members of every branch of the U.S. military, as well as embassy staff from around the world and all coalition forces. Patients of 33 different nationalities have been treated at the hospital since the War on Terror began.

When we return to report on the Nevada National Guard members in action on Friday morning, a public affairs liaison will ask each patient if they are OK with being photographed, Shaw-Fievez said.

"You will not be allowed to report on special operations soldiers or those injured in classified missions."

After she finished her briefing we took a hospital tour lead by Lt. Col. Sidney Van Assche, the deployment commander for the 152nd's medical unit.

Coming Saturday: Nevada National Guard members treat wounded from war on

terror

Karl Horeis is a reporter for the Nevada Appeal on assignment with the Nevada Air National Guard in Germany. Reach him at khoreis@nevadaappeal.com