The last word
Posted: January 17, 2012
War bird
In a blog chronicling his experiences during his Afghanistan deployment, ATSU-KCOM alumnus Major Mark Duber, D.O., ’05, takes readers on an intense medical journey. This excerpt only glimpses Maj. Duber’s life as an orthopaedic surgeon in the U.S. Army. Read more at warbirddoctor.blogspot.com.
I finally went to sleep at 1 a.m. after a busy day of everything. Fifteen minutes into the enjoyment of my sleep there is a frantic knock on my door from our nurse anesthesia provider. “Special Forces just brought a patient in bad shape. We need you now!” Thankfully I am not fully asleep at this point so it is relatively easy to pry myself out of my bunk. I get dressed and head to the FST to see what the excitement is about. As I enter the reinforced steel door to the FST, 10 sets of eyes are staring at me with intensity; two of them belonging to Special Forces medics. I quickly learn that the patient is a 25-year-old Afghan woman who was shot in the thigh by an insurgent as she was trying to escape from our elite commandos; oh, and by the way, she is six-months pregnant.
– “All nighter,” Saturday, Sept.17, 2011