"You never really know how you're going to react," split second actions save lives in Kandahar

Zahri, Kandahar-
These guys never cease to amaze me. A combat medic has a whole different math to calculate. And only a few seconds to do it.

PFC Michael Wayman, 31, of Gillespie, IL, had never been out of country, much less to Kandahar during a summer when the offensive into the Taliban heartland was supposed to take place.

About two weeks after the 1-502^nd Infantry Battalion moved in, Wayman had to react to his first combat casualty. A soldier in his platoon stepped on an anti-personnel mine. It took out his leg up to his mid-calf. Shrapnel pierced the brachial artery in the soldier’s arm. PFC Wayman was on station at the Pierre Mohammed school where ^2nd Platoon stays on 48 hour shifts when he heard the call.

“In my head I was freaking out,” Wayman said. “But the training took over.” Medics who’ve been through extreme situations, basically treating any combat injury in the field, often say this. But it’s hard for a civilian to imagine what this actually means- if they don’t keep calm and use their exact training to stop the bleeding, the soldier will die within minutes.

When the 2^nd Platoon soldiers rushed Cortez to the aid station at the school, a soldier had already put a field tourniquet, a simple Velcro strap tightened by a small plastic lever, over Spc. Cortex’s leg. The tourniquet didn’t hold as well on the arm, the vein might have flexed shut. But Spc. Wayman was able to get fluids into Cortez, and they quickly moved him to Outpost Sanjeray where he was packed with a specialized combat clotting gauze.

“You never really know how you’re going to react,” Wayman said. “I thought I’d be shaky, but the needle went in the first time.”

Finding a vein to stick the IV in during an emergency is tricky business. The fact that it went in the first time, must have boosted his confidence. He had passed perhaps the most important test- how would he react when one of his guy's life was on the line.

Spc. Wayman would need it in Mid-June. That's when the grenade attacks started in Sanjeray. 2^nd Platoon has experienced enough of these to post a sign on their cooler at the school not to slam the door because it sounds like a grenade exploding.

As Wayman remembers- we were doing a census patrol in Sanjeray. The patrol was headed back to the school. “We just went around the corner, and I lost sight of the rear detail (the soldiers behind him). I turned back to see the guys and I heard something skid across the ground. I thought it was kids throwing rocks.”

“Then I saw Spc. Blimphey’s eyes light up. I looked down. As soon as I realized it was a grenade, it went off. My ears were ringing, I couldn’t see anything. I felt something hit me on the side of the foot, then one of our guys in back yelled Medic!”

“I ran towards Blimphey who was facing towards Figueroa, our SAW gunner. Sprinting towards Figueroa, I saw he was bleeding bad from the leg. I cut his pants and with as much blood spilling out, I figured he’d been hit in the femoral artery. I put a tourniquet on him. I packed as much gauze in the wound and around it as I could and called for a Skid Co. (a field stretcher). We got him on that and I couldn’t pull him cause my foot was hurting bad. We had three guys carry him. Bliphey had been hit in the face with shrapnel, but he could walk.”

About 500 meters from the school, Wayman was heartened to see Figueroa get some color back, but Bliphey was in bad pain from shrapnel in this jaw. The platoon loaded both the wounded guys into a vehicle. Wayman had to prop Bliphey up in the seat with one hand while he drifted in and out of consciousness, at the same time he was trying to check Figueroa's vital signs. Conducting these moves on adrenaline, he didn't realize how badly he'd been wounded himself.

“We got them out and loaded onto a chopper at the COP (outpost Sanjeray), and that’s when I started feeling pain,” Wayman said. “Before it was all adrenaline. I saw I had a blood spot on my thigh getting bigger. And I realized I’d been hit by shrapnel in both calves. The shrapnel in my foot broke my metacarpal bone just past my pinkie toe, where it was lodged between the bone.”

Wayman had to wait two hours for another Medevac helicopter. From there he was taken to Kandahar air field. “Once you go to Germany, they usually push for you to go to the States. I begged for them not to send me,” he said. The Army kept him in Kandahar for a month and a half until the stitches came out. Then he was sent to FOB Wilson were he worked at the battalion aid station. Other medics took to calling him ‘Hero’.

Now PFC Wayman is back at Sanjeray ready to go back on the line, as they call it, with his platoon. He’s humble to the point of not telling the whole story, but admitted Figueroa could have bled out within minutes. Other guys in the platoon confirmed he saved Figueroa. Spc. Blimphey had to get his jaw wired shot. Both Bliphey and Figueroa are recuperating in the States.

Lt. Chris Kinzel, the platoon leader put Spc. Wayman in for a Bronze Star with Valor, but Wayman admits he knows for sure he got a Purple Heart.

“At least I got to my wife before anyone else. I called her from the hospital and told her I was alright.” As for begging not to leave his unit, he said a platitude that rings true for the guys living it. “You get shot at together.. you got to trust the guy next to you.”

Everyday heroism in one of Kandahar’s most dangerous areas.