In Memory of the Young Bleeder, the Children, The World
NamNews, 1-02, Pages 13-15, 5 Dec 1987
By: Lynda M. Van Devanter
When I read about President Carter's call to renew registration of the draft, this is what
I see: It is 3 a.m. in Pleiku, South Vietnam. The fighting in the central highlands is
heavy, and I am called out of my sleep to the operating room. I have been sleeping on the
floor under my cot, having been awakened an hour earlier by a rocket attack, as on most
other nights. Even in my groggy state, the gruff words on the phone, "Casualties! Get
down here, on the double!," are enough to send my adrenaline flowing, and I'm alert
by the time I get to the OR. I change quickly to scrub cloths, and report to the head
nurse for my assignment.
"There's a bad one in the neuro," she says, "and I need you to pump blood
in there." The neuro room is one that I don't particularly like to work in, since
head wounds are usually so messy, but, even knowing that I am unprepared for the sight
that awaits me.
It's the largest trail of blood leading to the table that I have ever seen. I slip on it
because my eyes are drawn to the gurney where several people are transferring the soldier
to the operating table. I watch in horror as the lower portion of his jaw, teeth exposed,
dangles from what is left of his face. It swings in the air as he is moved from the gurney
to the table, and I hold my breath to keep from getting sick. For a moment I am glued to
the spot. I thought I had gotten used to it but it keeps getting worse.
The shout of the anesthetist brings me up sharply, and I rush to his side to assist him in
a tracheotomy. "We've got to get an airway into him fast - he's drowning in
blood." he yells, and my training moves me into action. I grab a tray of instruments
and open it. For the sake of speed, we perform the trach without donning gloves. Once the
opening into the boy's windpipe is completed, and he is being ventilated, I move to help
the surgeon. He grabs instruments from the tray to clamp off the largest bleeders in the
face and jaw.
Meanwhile, the scrub technician is setting up the sterile field of linens and instruments,
and, once the largest bleeders are tied off, the surgeon puts on his gown and gloves and
they begin to work in earnest to try and repair the damage. Now I know what the head nurse
meant when she told me that I was needed to pump blood. The young soldier is bleeding so
fast that it is necessary to start four large needles in his leg, neck and both arms, and
pump blood into all of them simultaneously. I do only this for several hours.
I invent a routine. Start at the neck, take down the empty bag of blood, slip a new one
into the pressure cuff, pump up the pressure in the cuff and rehang it. Then go to the
left arm and repeat the process. Next the left leg, then finally the right arm. Then start
back at the neck line and repeat the entire sequence. It takes about five minutes to
complete the steps at each site, about twenty minutes to make a round of him. It becomes
rote after a while and I lapse into thinking about the patient.
During one of my circuits around the table, I move his clothes to one side, and a snapshot
falls out of the pocket of his fatigues, it is of a young couple - him and his girl, I
guess - dressed for a prom. Tears come to my eyes. He is gazing sweetly at the girl.
Straight, blond and tall, he looks good in a tuxedo. She, too, is tall, with shining dark
hair. She is wearing a long pastel gown. Love for him shining in her eyes.
The scene is stark contrast to what I see in this room. The lovely young man is now a mass
of blood vessels and skin, so macerated that nothing could hold them together. The more
the surgeon works, the more the boy bleeds. I've always held onto the notion that, given
enough time, anything can be stopped from bleeding. Just keep at it, and eventually you'll
get every last vessel. I am about to learn a hard lesson.
I pump 120 units of blood i to that young man. But as fast as I pump it in he pumps it
out. After hours of work, the surgeon finally realizes that it is futile. He wraps the
boys head in layers of pressure bandages and sends him to the post op/intensive- care unit
to die. As I clean up the room, I keep telling myself that a miracle could happen. He
could stop bleeding. He'll be alright. I moved about the mess, picking up blood-soaked
linen and putting them into the hamper. I come across the photograph again, pick it up and
stare. He had been real. He was a person who could love and think and plan and dream - and
now he is lost to himself, to her and to their future. I sit on the floor, my head in my
hands, and sob.
After making the room ready for the next head injury - the next person - I walk over to
the post-op/ICU to see him. His bandages have become saturated with blood several time
over, and the nurses have reinforced it with more rolls of bandage, mostly to cover it up,
so now his head is grotesquely large under the swath of white. I hold his hand for a few
moments and ask him if he is in pain. He squeezes my hand weekly and I tell him I'll
request some pain medication. He squeezes my hand again in answer. I stand holding hands
with him for another few moments, the last of his life. My hands shake now as I write
this, as they did then, and the tears return.
I think of this incident again now, and of many others like it during that year in
Vietnam. I am reminded of tiny children with their arms and legs blown off. I remember a
pregnant woman with a belly wound, and the delivery of her child by Caesarean section -
the child who entered this life with a gunshot wound in his belly, the perfect circle of
life in war.
A decade later, we have even more advanced weapons of war, and my heart aches with the
thought that we may decide to use them.
When will we learn the lessons of past wars? When will we stop taking the seed of our
lives, our children, and sending them to destruction? When will we realize that war does
nothing but perpetuate war - that violence begets only violence? I ask our President
and the leaders of the world community, can we not find some way of living together in
peace and harmony? Can we not stop what seems to be carrying us inexorably toward another
war - and possible nuclear destruction?
I don't know the answer, I can only pray for peace.
EDITORS NOTE:
Linda M. Van Devanter, a registered nurse, was a Lieutenant in the Army, stationed at
Pleiku, and Qui Nhan, South Vietnam from 1969 to 1970. She is the women's director of
Vietnam Veterans of America and a published author of the best seller, "Home Before
Morning"; THE story about nurses in Vietnam.
My Vietnam Related Websites:
Women in
Vietnam ~ Not only nurses served . . .
Dusty's Home
Page ~ Poetry and prose by a woman who was a nurse in Vietnam
Emily's Poetry
~ By a Red Cross Donut Dolly
Battle
Dressing ~ The Journey of a Nurse in Vietnam
Tim
O'Brien's Home Page ~ National Book Award Winner and Americal Vet
Shrapnel in
the Heart ~ The most moving book you will read on Vietnam
The
Irish on the Wall ~ An effort to locate the Irish who died in Vietnam
Project Hearts
and Minds ~ Help put Viet Nam back together
All About
Vietnam ~ An annotated bibliography of books about Vietnam for
sale thru Amazon Worldwide!
Photos
from a Holts' Military History Tour ~ My trip to Vietnam, February 1998
Illinois
Vietnam Women's Memorial ~ Honoring all the Illinois women who served
My Other Websites:
Chicago
Theatre Z - A ~ This is the best theater town in the country!
Writers
Theatre of Chicago ~ And this is the best theater in town
Literature
of the Korean War ~ Don't let the literature be forgotten
Poetry
of the First World War ~ Owen, Hardy and others
Samuel
Pepys ~ One of my favorite authors
Gil
Thorp ~ THE Coach
Maybe
Later . . . ~ My Creative Nonfiction
Chi-COW-go
~ Cowz plus Commentary (this used to be a cow town)
Graham
Fulton, Scottish Poet ~ Charles Manson Auditions for the Monkees
Soccer
Literature ~ I'm a fan and I read
O'Leary Lantern ~ Fire! Fire! Fire!
Other Important Websites:
Remember
Oklahoma City ~ Civil Service and Military Employees will never forget
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