A Nurse's Story

In addition to working the wards at Role 3 trauma hospital at Kandahar air base, Capt. Rhonda Crew, a Canadian armed forces nurse from Goose Bay, Newfoundland and Labrador, flies medevac duty, retrieving casualties. Here, she talks to the fifth estate about one of those missions. Watch the interview online.

Captain Rhonda Crew: Unfortunately we had found out that it was going to be three Canadians we were going to pick up. Always a little hard in the gut when you hear that. And then we heard that we were going to point of injury instead of to a forward operating base like when we went to Tarin Kowt
that morning. So that means that you're going to an area where you do not own the supremacy of the land or the supremacy of the area so you're not sure really what you're going to get into…

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…while we're flying, the people in the back, we are constantly scanning. We're just like this the whole time. Usually one of us does one side for a while but you don't want your eyes to get tired or adjusted so you turn and look the other way. And basically we're just trying to make sure that we don't see any flashes which usually indicate a scope or a metal object which would lead us to believe to small arms fire or anti-aircraft, anything that we really don't want coming our way. So we just keep an eye out for anything that looks unusual. And once we ascertain that it was safe, we did land. The American medic, Josh, he went out. He brought us back two of the litter patients.

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Captain Rhonda Crew: So before the door opens, I guess I'm just kind of wondering to myself like what's coming. You get the report, you get an idea whether it's an Alpha Bravo Charlie saying how serious it is. But until you actually see them, you don't really know how it's gonna be. You hear leg injury but you don't know, is it going to be an open leg injury with the bone sticking out or is it a bruise? You just don't know till you get there.

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So they're strapped in. Off we go. We're strapped in too. And then you start assessing them head to toe. The normal assessment that you'll do in any trauma, it just happens to be we're in the air. So head to toe, check ‘em out, check out the injuries. See how bad they are. See how they've been dressed. We call that TCCC. They are persons in the field who are trained medically on what to do in these accidents and injuries and we have those as well as medics out there in the convoys.

And I have to say I have been blow away the entire tour with the work that these guys have been doing, and girls, that they've been doing for our soldiers. I would say that they are the ones out there saving the lives. If they get to us alive then they live basically. And so it's really, really quite amazing to see the stuff that they do. Assess them, transport them, make sure they stay safe. Provide intravenous, antibiotics, whatever it is that we're going to be doing. It really depends on the length of the flight though because that flight that day was 12 or 13 minutes. I can't remember but it was a really, really short flight to point of injury. So by the time you get in, you get strapped in, you take off and you head back, you're almost ready to land. So there isn't a lot of in-flight care being done so much as stabilizing and watching for things that are going to cause life threatening. So you're watching to make sure that they don't have a pneumothorax or something that will threaten life and limb, bleeding external and then get them back here.

Question: Is there a personal touch? Stroke their hands and things. Tell me about that.

Captain Rhonda Crew: I'm a nurse. (laugh) I guess I just try to talk to them in their own language, make eye contact, smile. I love to smile. I hope it's contagious. You know, it's just my thing. But you know, hold their hand, let them know you're there. Pat their shoulder, I mean wherever they're not injured. Make sure you're not patting the injured spot. But I mean really just the little touch of home and they're just so happy.

One of my first traumas that I had here in the hospital actually, not in air evac was Canadians. And the guys, you know, they're just like wow, a Canadian, you know. It's just nice to hear our language, hear our voices, see someone that we recognize, a rank we recognize and just, you know, that little, yeah it's okay to hold your hand. That's, you know, that's perfectly fine and actually I think it's nice.

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So in you come. We land here at the Role 3. And as you know, then we com out, meet the ambulance, bring them into the hospital, go into the trauma bays. And I know you've got great footage of trauma bays and that's when we're standing there and we're giving a report to the nurse, the doctor, the medic and whoever else happens to be made up in the team that's going to be caring for this patient. The recorder - it's very important to make sure the admin and everything is all done so they know what's gone on with this patient. It doesn't do much good for us to yell it out loud if nobody hears it or records it. So say what's gone on, how they got there, how transport went and wish them luck. And off we go. And the mission is not done when we drop the patient off. The mission is not done until we pick up our equipment, restock our aircraft, clean our aircraft and make sure that it's ready to go for the next time.