One of my reoccuring memories from Afghanistan is the time SGT Hernandez scared the crap out of me in the hallway of the Qalat PRT barracks area.
One night while in Qalat, I was headed back to my room after taking a shower. As I was nearing my room, I saw a dark figure coming towards me. That figure was holding his neck and walking slow. My first notion was that it was one of the Afghan security forces we had on the compound who was in a restricted area, so I was about to release a burst of anger in order to get him back to his area in a manner where he would not come back in the restricted area for a while. Then I realized that the figure walking towards me was one of my teammembers and his uniform was dark because he was completely covered with blood. Dropping all of my gear, grabbing him and yelling for help, people came out of their areas to immediately assist. We were able to get him to the medical facility where SSG Solis attempted to keep him concious. He had lost a lot of blood and it was becoming much more difficult to keep him concious. SSG Solis informed us that we must get him to the surgeons at FOB Laghman which was only about 2.5 kilometers away. I ran and moved the civilian ambulance to the front of the medic station and SSG Moore and SSG Solis loaded SGT Hernandez into the minivan with lights on it. Due to the time limitation we had on us, we were unable to wait for an escort, or even get our own body armor, weapons, or even our proper uniform on. We started heading out the front gate of the Qalat PRT informing our remaining team members to radio ahead to FOB Laghman and let them know that we were headed their way with an emergency. With me driving the civilian ambulance frantically over the dirt bumpy roads, the individuals in the back of the ambulance kept reminding me to hurry up, but keep it slow so that hitting the bumps weren't so rough.
As we were coming to FOB Laghman, I had the ambulance emergency lights flashing which seem to confuse the Afghan National Army soldiers who were guarding the outter parameter of FOB Laghman. By the time we got close enough to them, I had the window down, my head out of the window screaming we had serious wounded and we are coming in for them to raise the gate. I am glad that my screaming in English was enough to have them question themselves of shooting first, but they did pause us for a bit before opening the gate. I then drove through the serpantine maze rather quickly and the American forces there already had the gate open and yelled that they were waiting for us at the medical center. Arriving at the medical center, we were greeted by about 4 people whom I attempted to give them an account of what happened. It was unclear at this time why SGT Hernandez was bleeding all over the place from his neck but it was bad.
Through the discussions, it was first informed to the medical team that we were bringing in a prisoner who was wounded from one of our previous gunfights that had taken a turn for the worst. Since SGT Hernandez was unable to speak, was slender, dark skinned, and the uniform he arrived with was cut off as it was bload soaked, their first instincts too were that he was a local national and not an American soldier.
We did save him that night, but it was one of those situations where bravery and stupidity mixed. One of those events in your life where you react before you think.
