Scott AFB deeply involved in evacuating injured soldiers to Germany

Another great report from FOX News out of St. Louis.

During the Vietnam War 42 days was the average time to get a wounded warrior home. Now critical cases can arrive stateside in only hours. Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany has treated more than 70 thousand injured troops in the past 13 years. 99 percent of all battle victims have passed through there. It’s the largest American hospital outside the U.S. It’s only a few miles from Ramstein Air Base. Chuck Roberts is a spokesman for the hospital, “We almost put something equivalent to an intensive care unit in the back of an aircraft.”
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The number of injured soldiers is dropping. During the height of the war a center on the Ramstein Air Base was opened to handle the overflow of patients. With the war winding down, 50 percent of the beds are not being used. They’ve cut staff there’s less of a need for them. Staff Sgt. Brent Merry works at the center he added, “Work ourselves out of a job would be the grand plan here.”

Until then medical experts push the envelope farther, even operating on critical patients on the plane after it’s landed it primitive locations. Lt. Col. Matthew Fehrman said, “That is currently an amazing capability that they have it is the cutting edge, that far reaching point of air medical evacuation.”