Chapter 22 – Bleeding Through Bandages
When Jane joined the Air Force at the age of 18, she never thought she would have such fun shooting machine guns. She joined the Air Force while waiting to join the Boston Police Department. She wanted to be a homicide detective.
She couldn't join BPD until she was 21 years old. She didn't have the money for college so she figured the military would be a great place for her to gain some experience while waiting to apply to the Boston Police Academy. It would also help her pay for the academy.
She had trained as a security forces team member. As such she went through extensive training on different types of guns and combat scenarios. Jane loved shooting the machine gun. She performed so well she shot at the marksman level for every gun she shot.
Her last year in Germany she has selected to be part of a joint deployment. Her flight, B-flight, would join Army MPs from her base for the three-month deployment to Ahmad al-Jaber Air Base in Kuwait.
She went out on patrols at least four times a week. The convoy patrol consisted of four Humvees, each with four personnel. She always volunteered to be the gunner on her mission. The guys in the Humvee knew that she had shot marksman with the machine gun so they let her be the gunner.
She knew that the gunner position was dangerous. You were exposed and therefore a target to be shot at. She had a metal partition shielding her but it didn't cover all of her body. She knew the risks and she accepted them.
She had been in theater for two months and only had to fire a few warning shots. They had driven through an area that was deemed to not be a threat. They had traveled that way many times enroute to other locations. This time was different, their convoy was ambushed. Jane had been shot in the left shoulder twice. She lost so much blood that she passed out and fell into the Humvee.
The sergeant, the non-commissioned officer in charge of the convoy, saw Jane's wounds and immediately started to tend to her injuries. He remembered Jane telling them about the tampons that she had added to their medical kits. He grabbed two of the tampons and shoved one of them in each of the gunshot wounds. He then covered up the wound as best he could as he radioed for help.
Jane had added tampons to all of the medical kits in the Humvees. The guys thought she was crazy. One soldier asked, "What the hell are you doing Rizzoli? We don't need female products in our med kits."
"It is not for me, you idiot, it is for injuries. It can be used as a makeshift wound dressing. It can temporarily stop bleeding until proper medical attention can be given."
"Oh, that makes sense, because you women use them to soak up your blood."
"Don't be gross, but yes, okay, change the subject."
"Alright, Rizzoli, we will leave them in the med kit. I hope we never have to use them, because I don't know anything about them, except they are for girls."
"I will show any of you idiots that need a lesson in how to shove them into a wound to slow down the bleeding."
Jane was bleeding so much he was going to run out of bandages soon. He told the driver, "Drive faster, or we are going to lose her."
Jane was bleeding through the bandages. He knew that he should not remove the bandage but rather add a new bandage on top of the old one. She was bleeding still bleeding so he kept adding bandages until they arrived on the base. The tampons had helped but they did not stop the bleeding.
The sergeant stayed with Jane as she was removed from the Humvee and taken into the field hospital. The doctor asked him what had happened. The sergeant told him and explained that he tried to slow down the bleeding. The doctor thanked him and took Jane into the operating room. The doctor knew that he had some bullets to remove from this airman.
The doctor was quite surprised to see the tampons in the wounds. He didn't know of many untrained soldiers that knew about that field hack for helping to stop the blood from flowing. He was happy that this sergeant knew that. He might have just saved this young woman's life. It took the doctor a few hours to get Jane's wounds cleaned out and get her ready for transport to Germany.
When the doctor finished with Jane's surgery, he went to see if the sergeant was still at the hospital. He found him sitting on the floor half asleep right outside the operating room. The doctor gently tapped the sergeant on the shoulder. The sergeant shook his head and opened his eyes to see the doctor looking at him.
"Whose idea was it to use the tampon, Sergeant?"
"It was actually her idea to put them in the med kits of each of our Humvees. We thought she was crazy at first but I am glad they were there. She was bleeding so much, the tampon is the first things I used. I knew it would soak up a lot of the blood."
"You are right and you might have just saved her life, Sergeant. Thank you for trusting her and please spread the word. It was great that you kept piling on the bandages also rather than removing them as they got soaked. So many people remove the old bandage. Are you sure, you haven't had any medical field training?"
"I am sure, sir. How is Rizzoli?"
"She is in a world of pain right now, we have her on some pretty good meds and have knocked her out for her trip to Germany. They are going to medevac her. I would say you could see her to say goodbye for now, but she is out for the count. I need her body to settle down. The doctors will evaluate her in Germany and then she can start the healing process. Thank you again for your tremendous help in the field."
The sergeant was pleased that he had did his part to save Jane's life. Her bleeding was now under control, and she was stable enough for transport to Germany. He decided he would continue to learn about things that he can do in the field to help his coworkers in the event of another ambush. He made a note to check on Rizzoli in two days. By then she would have had any further surgery and she might be awake enough to talk with him.