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CNN SHOWDOWN: IRAQ
Military Doctors Under High Pressure in Desert
Aired March 26, 2003 - 12:57 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BLITZER: Our Dr. Sanjay Gupta has been embedded with a military medical unit known as the "Devil Docs". Here's a look at what his journey has been like this past week.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the middle of desert of northern Kuwait, the U.S. military is going over their ABCs.
We started back in February several weeks ago looking at medical preparedness. It's going to be a different sort of conflict. Chemical and biological weapons were discussed and how the troops were preparing, back then, was an important story.
(on camera): Where you from back home?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Arizona.
GUPTA: Arizona. All right, thank you very much for joining us.
Back to you. We're going to be joining this convoy, a three-mile long convoy, supplying some of the forces in Iraq.
We ended up in northern Kuwait in the desert for some time. Then ended up on a convoy, a multiple vehicle convoy, 89 vehicles, three miles long. They told us it would take about five hours to get to the location where we were going to get. It took 17.
The conditions since we've been in Iraq have not been exactly what you'd call five star. We have slept under the stars in sleeping bags. We have slept by a bunker, just so we can jump in it because there was so many times the alarms would sound in the middle of the night. We have slept in the back of a huge truck traveling through sniper-infested areas of Iraq.
We don't have bathrooms out here. We don have showers. I haven't showered in seven days now. And it probably shows.
We've been in this bunker now for many hours. As you can see, we're wearing our masks and our helmets because we are instructed to do so, as we are instructed to be here in this bunker.
I'm used to be in the studio wearing a suit on the set. This is obviously a huge change for me. People keep telling me, we're surprised that you're out there. Well I can assure you, no one is no more surprised than I am.
We are here just behind the front line in an FRSS, scrub line resuscitative surgical suite. Right behind me for the first time ever an operation has been done on the abdomen for a gunshot wound.
So, there is definitely sand blowing everywhere, yet they are able to keep these operating rooms clean. They are able to do operations. We've seen them do it now, four or five operations just over the last couple of days.
And soon as they found out that I was a neurosurgeon, they immediately said to me, well, if we get any head injuries, we're calling you. Bottom line: we can't take care of those things here.
And I thought that was, you know, sort of an interesting thing to say and certainly made me feel welcome and that I would actually jump in, volunteer and help out any way that I could. I felt both medically and morally responsible to do just that.
I haven't had to. The only thing I've had to do was help look at some cervical spine neck injuries and determine whether or not they were going to be of a serious nature later on. I have not had to perform any operations. But I can tell you, especially after having been here for quite some time, that I would gladly do so and be honored to do so.
(voice-over): A little while ago, a few hours ago, we were told to hunker down, put on all of our gear and get down. There has been a breach of a company-sized convoy actually heading our way and apparently breached the perimeter.
(on camera): I think if anybody says that they weren't scared, being here in Iraq, they would not be considering everything or they'd just be lying. You have to be scared if you're here.
We've seen people killed in action. We are hearing about possible chemical and biological stuff. Absolutely, we're scared. I think that, you know, moving further and further north, the threat becomes more and more, I guess, possible. It feels more real.
But I'll be honest and say that this is probably a more dangerous sort of story to follow than I thought.
I think most of the doctors that we've spoken with think they're a little bit busier than they expected to be and certainly operating on more Iraqis than they expected to be, but it really comes in spurts. We're just going to have to wait and see how it all plays out.
(voice-over): We have been really pleased with the stories we've been able to tell. I think that that's really -- that's what makes it worthwhile.
We're getting the truth out there; we're getting the truth about how people take care of their fallen comrades, how they take care of the Iraqi soldiers, as well, how that all happens. We not only get to tell that story, but we get to see it first hand, and we get to be a part of this.
(on camera): And I think it's an amazing story, an amazing story in most cases, but in some cases, really seeing how these medical military is tried.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
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