71st Evac Hosp-Pleiku, Vietnam - Stories

These stories are true, but the names may be
changed to protect the innocent. Besides, my memory
isn't very good any more. I haven't researched any of these for historical detail, but have lived them. Steven Streeper - Copyright, 2007

Ground Flare

You've probably seen a flare before, if not in the movies, then at a Fourth of July fireworks display. They're typically fired from a ground mortar to a height of perhaps 1000 feet. At the peak of the trajectory, a parachute deploys and the burning flare drifts gently to the ground, providing bright, harsh light for 30-60 seconds. The flare is housed in a metal casing, which is shed by a small explosive charge, allowing the 'chute to deploy. It is that housing that initiated this story:

When our troops made contact with the enemy at night, one of the first things they'd do was to fire mortar flares to get a light on the scene. It's a lot easier to hit something if you can see it. That's a very big deal when you're in a night firefight.

On the night in question, some of our ground troops had been engaged by the enemy and had been fighting for some time when they requested air support. In response, Cobra and Huey gunships were tasked to provide it. As the battle developed, the gunships would roll in on the enemy positions, fire their weapons and then roll out, setting up to come in again and again in a circular attack pattern. First one ship, then another would come on target, fire up the enemy, then roll out and go around.  Typically three gunships would set up in the pattern.

During this aerial merry-go-round, the ground troops were fighting for their lives, setting up as much firepower on the enemy as they could muster. They were illuminating the battleground with mortar flares and shooting until it grew dark, then they'd fire another.

In the heat of the battle, the mortar crew lost track of the circling choppers. They fired a flare and turned back to the fight.

As the mortar round neared the top of its trajectory, the Huey gunship rolled in on its attack run.

The path of the Huey intersected the trajectory of the mortar round just as the explosive charge blew the shroud off the flare.

Just as Sgt. Bill Smith, the Huey crew chief, was steadying his grip on his 50-caliber machine gun to bring some "smoke" on the enemy, there was a blinding flash in the crew compartment and, simultaneously, blinding pain in his face. He was blown almost out of the chopper, but his safety harness held him in. The other crewman, Sgt. Tom Dewey, manning the other waist gun, grabbed him and pulled him into the middle of the ship. The burning flare had fallen out of the bird and was free-falling to the ground, its chute burned away.

When Sgt. Dewey turned Sgt. Smith over so he could see his face, he almost fainted. Blood was gushing from a horrible wound and it looked like half of Smith's head was blown away. All he could see in the darkness of the pitching chopper was blood, everywhere. He screamed into his headset, "Smitty's hit..BAD, but the ship's okay!".

Instantly, the pilot radioed that he was breaking off the attack to evac a wounded crew member to the 71st Evac Hospital, which was only 15 miles away, about 10 minutes' air time. The call went out to the 71st to expect a chopper on their pad with a seriously wounded soldier.

At the 71st, everyone jumped into action, readying the ER, getting blood from the lab and the whole team was ready for action. As the chopper was flying in, Dewey was able to wrap a jacket around Smitty's head and was trying to keep some pressure on the terrible wound, but there was a lot of blood loss and he was going into shock.

When the chopper came in, the pilot was still going pretty fast, so he flared hard, pulling to a hurried stop and setting it down hard.

Before the skids hit the pad, five of us were running for the chopper. Four would haul the load while the fifth would try to establish what the real damage was. We grabbed Smitty, throwing him roughly onto the stretcher in our haste. Dewey grabbed a handle and we all sprinted the 50 yards to the ER door.

Setting Smith's stretcher on one of the ER gurneys, we got a look at him for the first time, under the bright lights. The front of his uniform was drenched with blood to the waist and his head was a bloody mess. Blood was dripping steadily onto the floor. Using our bandage scissors, we quickly cut off his boots and clothes so we could see the true extent of the damage. Clothing gets in the way and often makes wounds look worse than they really are. Once we got his clothes off, we quickly searched for wounds. Considering the amount of blood, we were expecting multiple wounds, but found only one...his face.

The right side of his head appeared to be gone but he was still breathing, though obviously in shock. We immediately started two good IVs in his arms and started pushing in the blood. Once that was done, we started looking at him more carefully. The left side of his face was covered with blood, which we washed away with some saline, but it was completely undamaged! We could see his skull showing through the bloody mess on the right side, though, and it looked like he'd been dissected.

Checking around, we discovered that the right side of his face had been peeled back and was lying, folded back, behind what should have been his right ear. Pulling the huge flap of skin and tissue up and around his face, it looked like someone had taken a scalpel to it, cutting him from forehead to chin in a perfectly straight line, through his nose and lips. Apparently, the flare housings' sharp edge had struck him in the center of the face and the force of the explosion had peeled back the entire right side of his face, pulling the eye from the socket. It was about the worst-looking wound I'd ever seen.

(NOTE: The nurse scrubbed in on the case was Lt. Lynda "Van" VanDevanter, who just passed away this spring. She suffered recurring nightmares about this case for the rest of her life. Her book, "Home Before Morning", talked about some of the cases, including this one, and shenanigans of the people of the 71st. We worked on a lot of cases together, but this one really must have struck a chord with her. It was a nightmarish scene right out of Stephen King, but we had a lot of those, some of which, in my opinion, were much worse.)

Rushing him into surgery, bypassing x-ray and lab completely, we started two more IVs so we could keep a heavy blood flow in. Once he had him on the table and have realized what we were dealing with, the on-call surgeon, an excellent oral surgeon dentist named Ken Bass  placed the eye back in its socket and started re-attaching the torn facial muscles and tissue that would hold this face together. After everything was pretty much back where it belonged, Dr. Bass stitched the face back together, with a single line of sutures running from hairline to chin. It was a startling sight, the right side of his face was swollen and misshapen while the left looked completely normal.

Note:  Dr. Bass, a Dental Officer, was trained as an oral surgeon.  At the 71st, however, ALL surgeons pulled call rotation.  During his time at the 71st, Dr. Bass became an absolute expert in all areas of trauma surgery...and he was, and is, a joy to work with.

This patient later died in post-op. We were never able to stop the bleeding and he continued to ooze blood from the incision and drains until he bled to death, having lost all of his clotting factors. He received a total of 75 units of blood in surgery and about 25 more in post-op.

The facts of this case are true. What happened in the chopper was pretty much the way it was described to me by the other crew members. The names of patient and fellow crew- member are fictitious, of course. It was such a bizarre accident that it stuck in my mind.

ADDENDUM:  5/8/8

I received the following email from Tim La Tour, a chopper pilot from the Pleiku area:

 Tim, I think it's reasonable to accept that "Gene" in Van's book was indeed your door gunner. 

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Thanks for visiting ...SP5 Steven Streeper

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