Your ODA is on a training mission in the southern Philippine islands. While conducting base defense improvements and inspections, your engineering sergeant (18C) has an accident resulting in a large splinter impaled into his right upper thigh. You remove it and 2 days later the 18C complains of pain, swelling, warmth, and redness around the initial puncture wound.
“Inspiring change” sounds like a good excuse, doesn’t it? Even though in special operations excuses are generally unacceptable, let alone welcome, I sheepishly hope, you won’t take ours as lame.
We haven’t been posting on this blog… Our vimeo channel got covered in dust and our social media venues ( i.e. Facebook and Twitter) have long disappeared of anyone’s radar… Yet, behind the scenes we’ve been working hard to empower the SOF Medics on the Old Continent. We’ve been sharing the advances of U.S. SOF medicine, and dedicating our time to inspire a paradigm shift in the special operations circles on the Eastern side of the Big Pond.
Your team was tasked with setting up an observation post in the Hindu Kush mountains. As you complete the mission and descend down a snow covered slope, one of your team members slips and slides. He is able to self-arrest using an ice axe. Unfortunately he sustains an injury to his right shoulder.
Your team is participating in a remote operation in Afghanistan together with an Afghan team. As a result of an IED blast, 2 Afghanis are killed in action, and one of your team members is injured. On the initial assessment the U.S. operator has reassuring vitals:
This time let’s get straight to the point! No need to keep repeating what SOFsono JSOM cases are all about!
During a Partner Nation Force (PNF) field training exercise (FTX), you are called to a scene of a motor vehicle accident (MVA). Two all-terrain vehicles (ATV’s), carrying a total of 5 US and PNF service members, crashed into each other. As you TRiAGE the victims, you realize that all 5 potentially need further medical care. The closest hospital is 90 minutes away, and your local ambulance service is capable of transporting only two patients at a time.
Yet another quarter has gone by, and the SOFsono JSOM case #2 is out in the Journal of Special Operations Medicine (fall issue). As promised, we are following with further discussion here on the blog.
Our goal is to provide you with a series of SOF-focused and case-based ultrasound education TiDBiTS. We want to show you how ultrasound can help you solve a number of OPERATiONAL and CLiNiCAL DiLEMMAS, especially in prolonged field care settings. Tidbits are defined as small and particularly interesting pieces of information, hence brevity is intentional!
A 28-year-old NATO Special Operations Forces (SOF) Operator participates in a LOW-PROFiLE MiSSiON. Continue Reading
As you all know, SOFsono and Journal of Special Operations Medicine (a.k.a. JSOM) have recently partnered to start a series of SOF-focused ultrasound education tidbits. And now we thought to partner with you, the SOF Medics!
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