Face of the woman could not be considered. The crew did not know his name, nor that of her husband, who was sitting in the vicinity. The soldiers knew it: she work nearly nine hours, and the intensity with which it specialist clutch Charles j. Williams, a medic with flight, suggested to worry and pain.
"It is clamping on my hand as she is about to pull," specialist, said into the microphone headset. "
"Oh, she is in pain," replied Sergeant Patrick e. Schultz, top flight nurse. It looked a screen showing his vital signs. "How much longer?
The cockpit, Capt Amy l. Bauer, a pilot in the army, replied: "Seven minutes."
For a crew of American Black Hawk and Afghan woman in fatal work hand, roaring fast flight this month was a tour of separate worlds and the promise and challenges when these worlds meet.
Poverty and lack of medical services in Kandahar province are almost total agricultural area and the road along the Arghandab River. A woman in the arid suburbs to a dangerous delivery local midwives could not resolve usually had a few choice beyond a bumpy ride on a rocky track and hope to reach the city of Kandahar before it and her dead baby.
Since last summer, there is another possibility. Helicopter medevac crews and American were placed in the small outposts along the River, deployed soldiers from NATO and Afghanistan against the Taliban.
Helicopters have been assigned to Kandahar Airfield to reduce time of flight for wounded soldiers meet modern trauma. But a patient is a patient. Afghans with ordinary but often severe conditions - victims of heart attacks, accidents or diseases advanced - often ask for help, too.
Each case raises a question. Should the crew evacuation scoop and civilian ferry and risk of not having a helicopter for a soldier hit by a bullet or blown by a bomb?
Hazardous work
December 11, the allocation of the mission have a tent at Forward Operating Base Wilson, where a detachment of the 101st combat aviation brigade expected its next call. It was just after 1 h 25. Any American or Afghan unit nearby had sustained a victim. The flight to pick up women has been approved.
The pilot and crew crossed the landing area covered with gravel to two helicopters - airplane evacuation without heavy weapons and a boat with two Gunners escort door machine guns.
This morning Sergeant Schultz, 31, told the crew that he had a strange dream. In this case, they had delivered a baby in the air. Now, Sgt. Schultz appeared on the landing area sprint. It was in the shower tent. Cream shave scratching his face.
"Schultz." Specialist Williams, 21, screamed. "You." This dream! »
Sergeant intervened inside the rotor began to turn and noise has increased. Soon the aircraft was thrown in the distance.
The patient was approximately 30 kilometres in the desert South Khakrez, of special forces compound Afghan. The word special forces were relayed by command in Kandahar: the woman had been working since before dawn, and it would be accompanied by the theft of her husband.
Sgt. Schultz published instructions, wondering how to find a balance between the medical and cultural requirements.
A review by two young Western men, he said, would be impossible, especially since nobody the aircraft can speak Pashto, the dominant language of southern Afghanistan, and he did not expect the patient to speak English. He worried that treat women would offend her husband and cause the shame of the family. The wife or husband could even resist.
Taimoor Shah has contributed reports Kandahar Afghanistan.
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