Working

[Flight 33]

The working uniform in hospital spaces were summer whites.  A white shirt with our rate and rank embroidered in black.  White bell bottoms and black shined shoes.
In the Emergency  Room later I would wear a white cotton short sleeve smock instead of shirt.  A hospital tech smock that buttoned on the side up to the neck.  It looked cool.  It made us look like serious medicos.  Or evil scientists HA!

We have many graduate Filipino nurses and doctors doing their internship at this hospital.  Under the direct supervision of senior navy nurses and doctors. 
All this possible through a program between the United States and Philippines.  And we're glad of it and happy to have them.  They are a tremendous help and well skilled in their profession.  They are young like us and we talk of many things on breaks.

I pull night shift in the ortho ward for a few months.   
Most of these guys are tied up in traction cables and weights attached to their casts and splints.  They could be in them for weeks, maybe months.  The orthopedic surgeons have done what they  could to reconstruct and repair shattered bones with metal implants and substitutes  It's my job to care for these patients and administer medications, apply fresh dressings, and keep clean all patients under my assignments.  Most of them are my age, nineteen.  Some younger, some older. 
We get a lot of patients who have been air evacuated from Vietnam.  The hard cases.  The ones who need complex surgery to try and repair and replace  what they have lost, if it can be done.

It's deep into the night.  I'm in the middle of my nursing notes and suddenly I hear screaming!  And the sound of cables and weights rattling!
I drop my chart and run into the dark ward to find the patient who's in distress. 
It's the sailor from one of our carriers who fell into an open elevator shaft.  The kind that brings up airplanes from the hanger deck.  He suffered multiple fractures in both arms and legs but survived.  He's got casts on all extremities.   I rush to his side and hold him from jumping out of bed and causing the cables and weights to become dislodged from their pulleys. 
A night nurse quickly assist me and we calm the patient with soothing words and a tranquilizer injection. 
He had relived his fall in a dream and it woke him up screaming.
It happened often.  They relive the moment of injury in battle and duty during sleep, and wake up screaming and scare the hell out of all the other patients, who are already on edge themselves.  Including me by now.
If you want to see a recollection of a patient's traumatic injury that involves major fractures, like if you're doing a study or something, then just hang out in an orthopedic ward late at night.

I get through the night shift assignment in Ortho and then  assigned to the day shift in General Medicine. 
Now its all things that can go wrong in the body.  Viruses, infection, cancer, disease and etymologies unknown.

Well it's pretty much the same duties.  Clean and dress wounds, administer meds, patient care, bedpans, patient hygiene, and the all important nursing notes.  Everything has to be charted.  Meds, patient care, patient demeanor, patient death, what ever that patient experiences while in that ward. 
Including the day that patient walks out the door on his or her own power.  The best notes of all.
It's a victory in our battle.

Working in these wards I begin to forge friendships with fellow corpsmen and nurses.  We get to know each other and even though the american nurses are officers.  That military formality is often relaxed.  But I did get into a little trouble once for saying "hi" to a high ranking officer instead of saluting.  Sometimes my lax military way got me chewed out.  But my performance in professional duties always earned me high marks.

After General Medicine I was assigned to the Emergency Room, on nights again.  Teamed with  one senior fellow corpsman,  a Filipino nurse and intern doctor.  And a senior navy medical nurse and doctor on call if needed.  But there was always one 'on duty' high ranking navy nurse who made rounds throughout the hospital on nights too.

The ER would be a whole new experience that would expose me to many new and scary experiences and would test my medical training to it's limits at times.

Working as a team with fellow corpsmen, nurses, interns, and doctors we treated the routine fight injuries, overdoses, fractures, minor knife wounds, and upper respiratory infections.
Then there was the bad stuff. 
DOA's, gunshot wounds, heart attacks, burns and serious internal medical emergencies that were flown in by Huey choppers sometimes.  Most by ambulance though.

Then one night that was the worst of all.
Communist 'Huks' had shot up a local village.  With the village leaders as the main targets. 
The ambulances came in a steady flow with the wounded civilians.  All available night and day crew were summoned to assist.  It was a long and hard working night of triage and emergency surgery, going into the next day, to try and save as many as possible.  Some died.  But considering the circumstances and number of patients, we did well. 
I remember around 15 to 20 casualties. 
Even though there was a hospital downtown, and they did receive casualties.  Our advanced facilities were closer and time was of the essence for the many more seriously wounded.

The Mayor of Olongapo and other dignitaries were there and did their part with information and administrative assistance. 
The Philippine Army hunted down the 'Huks' and killed some, and brought others to trial, we later learned.

I would get day shift in a rehab annex soon after, a welcome break.

Later, I was assigned back to the ER.  This time on day shift.