Crews Brave Enemy Fire to Save Soldiers
By Sgt. 1st Class Thomas Mills, USA
Special to American Forces Press Service
CAMP STRIKER, Iraq, Jan. 22, 2008 – Medical evacuation crews from Task Force Marne faced down enemy gunfire to deliver five injured soldiers in Iraq to safety Jan. 18.
The crews from the 3rd Infantry
Division’s Company C, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Aviation Regiment, Combat
Aviation Brigade, were called in when a patrol of Stryker vehicles from
the 25th Infantry Division’s 2nd Brigade Combat Team was attacked.
The
Black Hawk helicopters flew to the site, only to find that the easiest
place to land -- the road the Stryker vehicles were on -- had not been
cleared of possible improvised explosive devices. The medevac crews
were unable to contact the ground forces or an Apache team from 12th
Combat Aviation Brigade in the area.
After circling the area
scouting for a place to land, the crews landed in a field adjacent to
the road, Army Capt. Samuel Fricks, operations officer for Company C,
said. Fricks, from Morrow, Ga., was a pilot in the second of the two
medevac aircraft.
“After landing, my medic, Staff Sgt.
(Robert) Congdon, departed the aircraft and linked up with … Staff Sgt.
(Aughe) McQuown,” Fricks said.
The two Army medics went to the site of the attack and soon returned to the helicopters with three injured soldiers.
As they returned to the Stryker for the remaining two injured soldiers, Congdon said, they began taking fire.
“I just grabbed the patient and grabbed McQuown and we went into the Stryker,” said Congdon, a native of Las Vegas.
Bullets
struck the Stryker and around them as they went for the cover of the
armored vehicle. Congdon reset the Stryker’s radio to the medevac
frequency, then took off his flight helmet and put on a Stryker
crewmember’s helmet so he could talk to the aircrew.
When the
call came over the radio that his medics were taking fire, Fricks said,
he was not sure what to think. He did not know where the fire was
coming from, but he figured that since the helicopters were down below
the level of the road in the field, he was not in too much danger.
“The only thing we knew was that Staff Sergeant Congdon was taking fire,” Fricks said.
As
they waited for the two medics to come back with the remaining
patients, a third medic, Sgt. Donald Dedmon, from Foreman, Ark., in
training as a flight medic, ran back and forth between the two aircraft
to treat the injured soldiers already on board.
Dedmon was
midway through his training to be certified to operate as a lone medic
on a medevac mission when he found himself suddenly responsible for
patients on two different aircraft.
“I was keying on the patients,” Dedmon said. “Afterward, it kind of came into perspective.”
Fricks
had been linked up via radio to the circling Apaches, and he relayed
Congdon’s directions to bring in 30 mm machine cannon fire to suppress
the enemy shooter.
Back at the Stryker, Congdon and McQuown were attempting to get back to the aircraft with their patients.
“We
lowered the ramp (of the Stryker) to get out and be able to get to the
aircraft, and (the sniper) started shooting,” Congdon said.
McQuown,
a native of Florida, picked up one patient while Congdon and an
infantry soldier helped the other patient, and they broke for it.
“They
ran out of litters, and the guy was shooting at us,” Congdon said. “The
longer we wait on the ground, the worse it is on the patient, so at
some point we had to just leave and get the patients to the hospital.”
The
medics loaded the remaining two patients on the medvac birds. After a
quick count of heads to make sure no one was left behind, they departed
while the Apaches continued to lay down suppressing fire.
“The five patients we hauled all survived,” Fricks said.
He
said watching the two medics struggling to bring their patients to
safety was almost like something you’d see in a Hollywood production.
“I just thought it was awesome,” he said.
Company C is part of
Multinational Division Center and is based out of Baghdad International
Airport, with aircraft at several locations in and around the Iraqi
capital.
(Army Sgt. 1st Class Thomas Mills serves in public affairs with the 3rd Infantry Division’s 3rd Combat Aviation Brigade.)
