THE GATES OF HELL
CHAPTER 7
The rescue team consisted of men who had been searching for the prison camp for months. When they found it, they killed every Viet Cong solider they came across and freed the prisoners in the main camp. They would have missed finding David if one of the prisoners hadn't told them about the cages hidden in the jungle clearing. Two the rescue team made their way into the jungle and soon found the tiny cages. They saw David lying face down on the ground on top of a pile of loose dirt. At first they thought he was dead. Only the warmth of his skin and the faint rise and fall of his chest told them that he was still alive. His eyes were open, staring sightlessly at the sky overhead, and he didn't respond when one of the soldiers rolled him over onto his back and tried talking to him.
His condition was deplorable. His hair was dirty and tangled, grown out from the regulation military cut, his face unshaven and covered with a heavy beard. He had also lost at least thirty pounds since his confinement, leaving his face and body gaunt, the skin pulled tightly over clearly outlined bones. He was dirty and covered with bites from insects, along with numerous bruises and open sores from his previous injuries. The swelling from the snake bite had advanced up into his leg almost halfway to his knee and his skin was hot and dry to the touch. His two rescuers gently lifted David, one of them grabbing him under the arms while the second man grabbed his legs, and carried him back to one of the Medi-Vac helicopters that were standing by in the main camp.
As David was carefully placed on a stretcher inside one of the choppers, a nurse quickly accessed his condition. She determined that he was severely dehydrated and malnourished with a severe weight loss. He had several bites and lacerations that were seriously infected, not to mention the nearly critical infection in his left foot and leg. She knew it had been caused by a snake bite; she'd seen similar infections before caused by the untreated bite of that one particular little snake. He could end up losing the leg and she was worried about his mental status. He seemed to have withdrawn deep inside of himself and wasn't responding to any verbal stimuli. His responses to physical stimuli were sluggish and barely detectable, a clear sign that his central nervous system was compromised. She carefully strapped him down to the stretcher, preparing him for the flight to the nearest Mash Unit. She tightened the straps across his chest, over his hips, around his wrists and around his ankles, taking care not to disturb his injured leg any more than necessary. He would be uploaded with the rest of the most critically injured or ill prisoners. Other prisoners who were not as seriously ill or injured would be evacuated on a second group of copters that were already on their way in. Once she had David secured to the stretcher, she tapped the inside of his left forearm searching for a useable vein. Due to his severe dehydration, she finally had to use a vein in his groin to start an IV to get some fluids and antibiotics into him as quickly as possible.
The nurse examined the young man's face. He couldn't be much over twenty or twenty-one. So many of the soldiers she dealt with were young men in the prime of their lives. She said a special prayer for each of them. She had become a good judge of which ones would survive and which ones wouldn't and she had a feeling that this young man would survive if they got him to the hospital in time. She just hoped that they would be able to save his leg and bring his mind back from wherever he had retreated to. After she finished tending to him, she signaled the pilot that he could take off. A breeze filled the inside of the helicopter as they lifted into the air. As they started to fly towards the closest field hospital, the young man started to get extremely agitated and she was forced to sedate him to keep him calm and quiet.
Forty-five minutes later, the helicopter landed at the Mash Unit and medical personnel came running out to help unload the injured men. Briefly the nurse on board gave them a quick assessment on each man as he was unloaded from the chopper. The young man with the snake bite was one of the first ones unloaded. As she watched them carrying him towards the hospital tent, she smiled and whispered under her breath, "God Bless, soldier."
Inside the hospital tent, there was an organized chaos as the wounded soldiers were assessed with the most critical cases being tended to first by the surgeons and nurses. David was quickly assessed as needing immediate attention and was shifted onto one of the operating tables. A highly skilled team of nurses and doctors worked on him for the next three hours. Various lacerations were cleaned and sutured; other wounds were simply cleaned and covered with ointment, then bandaged. The main concern was his leg. An incision was made from mid-calf to his ankle and the infection was cleaned out of the wound. The wound was left open and tubes were inserted to continue to drain the infection from his body. He would also be given massive doses of antibiotics to fight the infection that still lingered in his system. The next forty eight hours would determine if he would lose his leg or not. He was also found to have pneumonia in both lungs, a dangerously high fever and intestinal worms from the poor diet. He would be given additional medications to combat those conditions. His condition was still critical but he at least had a fighting chance of surviving his ordeal.
Once his immediate physical injuries were cared for and he was moved to a bed, his primary nurse took over his care. After checking and making note of his vital signs, she gently bathed the young man and shaved him. His dark curls were so tangled she had no choice but to cut them, trimming the hair short and then treating him for head lice. Since he had no dog tags, he was simply listed in the medical records as John Doe # 731.
Since he had been combative on the Medi-vac copter, he was heavily sedated to keep him from re-injuring himself and disturbing the draining wound on his leg. But even with the sedation, he appeared to be agitated, tossing his head from side to side on the thin pillow and mumbling incoherently beneath his breath as he struggled with his own private demons. His primary nurse had seen far too many young men like him in the months she had been in this place, men who never returned completely from the wasteland of their own tortured minds. She prayed that this young man would be one of the lucky ones who would be able to find his way back.