FALLS CHURCH, Va. —
It was a sizzling summer season afternoon final yr in Kabul, Afghanistan, when Air Power Grasp Sgt. Grace Hodge, lab companies part chief at David Grant Air Power Medical Heart, in Fairfield, California, heeded an emergency name for all arms on deck.
Hodge had deployed to Bagram Air Base, simply north of Kabul, in April, because the lab group’s noncommissioned officer in cost. She and her group have been offering COVID-19 and trauma assist whereas additionally closing down the medical therapy facility at Bagram to assist the ultimate withdrawal of U.S. forces.
Because the occasions in Afghanistan grew more and more chaotic, Hodge ahead deployed in June to a hospital on the worldwide airport exterior Kabul.
There, she and her colleagues continued to course of COVID-19 exams, blood work, and different routine lab exams as U.S. forces continued the troop drawdown and offered airlift assist through the closing days of the U.S. mission in Afghanistan.
Hodge additionally led the Blood Product Distribution Heart for American efforts in Kabul, working instantly with the U.S. Central Command’s Blood Transshipment Heart in Qatar to offer complete blood merchandise to deal with wounded sufferers and repair members.
ISIS Bomb Assault
On the afternoon of Aug. 26, 2021, Hodge was one in every of solely two lab techs working alternate 24-hour shifts.
“I believe I used to be the one on obligation at the moment,” she recalled.
The scenario on the airport grew chaotic because the Taliban took over the world and hundreds of Afghans, of their desperation to flee the Taliban, flocked to the airport to make it onto an outbound flight earlier than the Aug. 31 deadline for the U.S. troop departure.
Confusion and chaos became horror as a suicide bomber attacked the crowds, setting off an explosion that killed greater than 150 Afghans and 13 U.S. service members.
“We have been capable of assist lots of people. And I am glad we have been there when that occurred as a result of if we hadn’t been there, much more folks would have died.”
– U.S. Air Power Grasp Sgt. Grace Hodge, lab companies part chief at David Grant Air Power Medical Heart
The assault pressured troops to adapt their drawdown plans and reply to the mass casualty.
“Previous to the assault, groups have been getting ready to go away the world,” Hodge stated. “Instantly, every thing modified, and our important objective shifted from COVID-19 assist to blood provide and triage.”
She remembers the sound of pagers as everybody acquired the emergency alert.
“When sufferers arrived, it didn’t matter who you have been,” stated Hodge. “We helped anybody who wanted it.”
Hodge, together with a group of lab staff from a number of different NATO international locations, supported the trauma circumstances nevertheless they may, even offering toiletries, garments, snacks, and different provides the United Service Organizations had despatched for the deployed troops.
“We have been capable of assist lots of people,” she stated. “And I am glad we have been there when that occurred as a result of if we hadn’t been there, much more folks would have died.”
A lab tech’s job throughout a mass casualty incident entails managing traumas, “ensuring we’ve got complete blood for the sufferers that want it, and taking blood samples for testing,” Hodge defined.
Very similar to the best way her group did at Bagram Air Base, they “needed to decide and select” who stayed behind in Afghanistan and what capabilities remained operational.
“Some troops left sooner than us and a few troops have been retained [including Special Forces] in case the rest occurred,” she stated.
After the bomb assault, Hodge’s group nonetheless needed to shut down the hospital on the airport in Kabul.
“We would have liked to finish the retrograde,” Hodge stated, explaining the method that entails destroying affected person information and different delicate paperwork for security as a part of the evacuation.
As soon as the hospital was shut down, she boarded an plane out of Kabul with two vital classes. Lesson one: “Don’t take with no consideration what freedoms we’ve got — at all times bear in mind these service members who paid the final word sacrifice to have the freedoms we’ve got.” Lesson two: “All the time take coaching severely as a result of at any given time your function can change and fill that function to one of the best of your capability whether or not you might be a part of a safety or triage group.”
Adrenaline Dump
Air Power Senior Airman Jacob Washington, a lab tech from Hodge’s group from Travis Air Power Base, deployed with Hodge to Afghanistan.
“We have been doing a variety of COVID-19 testing for various NATO international locations,” he recalled. “We have been processing so many individuals from so many alternative international locations, fulfilling particular person COVID testing necessities so [people] might safely fly again residence to their nation.”
Leaving Bagram Air Base behind in June, the group continued their collaboration from completely different areas. Washington deployed to the U.S. navy’s Blood Transshipment Heart in Qatar, whereas Hodge headed to Kabul.
“When the blast occurred, a supervisor woke me up and advised me to get to work – so I started working,” Washington stated.
“Over the subsequent couple of days, we shipped about 256 items [of blood products] into Kabul via numerous means as a result of the sources have been reduce off and a variety of the flights have been grounded.”
“All the time take coaching severely as a result of at any given time your function can change and fill that function to one of the best of your capability whether or not you might be a part of a safety or triage group.”
– U.S. Air Power Grasp Sgt. Grace Hodge, lab companies part chief at David Grant Air Power Medical Heart
He stated they wanted to get “actual inventive with the methods to get blood there” together with piggy-backing pallets of blood merchandise on “flights with particular operations groups that went in on a lot smaller planes.”
Troops on the airport in Kabul have been in want, he stated, and the emergency resulted within the troops aiding anybody who wanted it.
“The blood was going on to the laboratory in Kabul whether or not it was for civilians, different companies, different international locations’ militaries … whoever wanted the blood and was being handled as a trauma casualty at the moment acquired the blood,” Washington stated.
He recalled his expertise in Afghanistan as distinctive as a result of though he works in a big hospital, it’s not a trauma middle.
“I’m a blood financial institution specialist,” he stated. “I do know blood. I understand how to present blood. I do know who wants blood.”
He acknowledged his coaching that ready him for emergencies like this one.
“Doing that was a really eye-opening expertise,” he stated. “It is actually an adrenaline dump like nothing else. You discover out precisely who everyone is in that second.”
“It actually makes you see the worth of what you do firsthand, and I really feel like that’s one thing that I cannot overlook.”
