Nurse anesthetist Springer has seen war horrors in Iraq

Sue Springer has seen some crazy things in Iraq. And some things that would thoroughly disgust the average American. It’s the nature of her job.

Springer has spent 27 years in the U.S. Army Reserves. She attended anesthesia school at Drake University in Des Moines, and currently works at Skiff Medical Center. She’s made two deployments to Iraq, one in 2005 and another in 2008. She presented some of her Iraq experiences to the Newton Noon Kiwanis last week.

Trained as a nurse anesthetist, Springer says people like her are in big demand.

“As an anesthetist, we tend to get deployed a lot,” Springer said. In fact, she is scheduled to head to Afghanistan in a couple of weeks.

During her last deployment to Iraq, Springer was part of the Forward Surgical Team, something similar to the M.A.S.H. units of the Korean War. Following intense training and receiving lots of vaccinations, Springer arrived in Kuwait where she received more training, before ending up in Al Kut, Iraq, south of Baghdad. The area was considered part of the Red Zone, and everyone wore armor at all times. The base was a series of small portable huts, but her operating room was very efficient, similar to one that might be found at Skiff.

Much of her routine was filled with treating American soldiers, but she spoke of a few other rather notable patients as well.

One patient was an Iraqi soldier with a broken leg. Without their medical care and equipment, Springer said, the soldier probably would have lost the broken leg or at least been extremely crippled for the rest of his life. Fortunately for him, the leg was set properly and would heal well.

Other patients included child burn victims, who could not receive adequate care at their local hospital. Another patient could not be said to even exist. A Special Forces patient with extreme burns came to the unit and because of the nature of the soldier’s duty, he was not officially listed as a patient. That soldier died six weeks later.

She also treated a 5-year-old boy who had been playing on a roof and was electrocuted by some electrical wires. Despite the care given at her unit, the boy developed gangrene in his hand, and it had to be amputated. It took three days to transfer the boy out of Al Kut to Baghdad.

During the four months Springer was at Al Kut, she noted three deaths on the base, including two soldier suicides.

Incoming mortars struck the base about 30 times while Springer was deployed, she said, one landing about 100 meters from her room.

Having experienced what she has in Iraq, Springer should be well-prepared for her job in Afghanistan.

John Jennings can be contacted at (641) 792-3121 ext. 425 or via email at jjennings@newtondailynews.com.