Not Your Typical ICU

Kandahar, Afghanistan


As you can see from the diagnoses posted on our white "status board," this is not your typical ICU.  We admitted a "GSW to the head" last week - a gun shot wound, allegedly.  Our neurosurgeon, Steve, was certain that it wasn't a GSW, but rather, an axe, machete, or other similar object that caused the skull-crushing damage to this local Afghani's head.  When you see macabre injuries, you deal with it by developing a macabre sense of humor.  Our patient, another Doe, soon became "the Axeman."  Today Axeman left for a local Afghani hospital.  He was quickly replaced in the trauma bay with a patient who had a  "knife to the head."  Knifeman?

We have seen other bizarre injuries.  The photo below shows my colleagues, Oscar and Corey, removing a ball bearing from an IED which had traveled from one temple, through the frontal lobe, to end up in the soft tissue beneath the opposite temple.  Ball Bearing Man fared much better than Axeman, as I expect he will walk out of the hospital with minimal deficits.

We have also seen weird animal-related injuries:  I have written about the young boy with the viper bite to the face, who fared well - and became famous via the front page of the NY Times.  As we were arriving in March a young boy was being discharged who had been picked up by his head - by a camel!  You can't find much in medical textbooks about camel bites to the head.  This only confirmed my suspicions about camels - that they are mean SOB's that are to be avoided.  We also recently had a young boy who was in some ways assaulted by a mule.  We never did figure out how that happened, but that mule must have been a real terror.

There are precious few weeks around here where someone doesn't say 'you'll never see that again.'