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While other reporters were embedded in fighting units during the Iraq War, NOVA
was covering the emergency medical response, living night and day with the
doctors, nurses, and medics in a frontline Combat Support Hospital (CSH). The
program captures a period of the conflict in April and May of 2003 when CSH
units faced a deluge of injured Iraqi soldiers and civilians who had little
support from their country's collapsed health-care system.
A 21st-century version of the Korean War-era MASH, or Mobile Army Surgical
Hospital, the CSH is a maze of sleek tents connecting fully equipped operating
rooms with X-ray, pharmacy, laboratory, in-patient wards, and other emergency
medical services. And like the characters in "M*A*S*H," the television series, the CSH
personnel are beset by constant ethical dilemmas that pit the team's commitment
to treat injured Iraqis against the messy realities of war. It's a situation in
which chance and bureaucratic policy often decide who lives and who dies. (For
more on this dilemma, see Tug of War.)
NOVA was stationed with two CSH units, the 10th and 21st, from the intense
prewar preparations in the United States to deployment overseas. The 21st CSH
followed U.S. troops into Iraq from Kuwait and set up at an air base in Balad in
the hotly contested Sunni Triangle, with a smaller section sent to Mosul
farther north. Meanwhile, the 10th CSH was part of the invasion force preparing
to enter Iraq through Turkey. When Turkey denied permission for the plan to
proceed, the 10th ended up in the Kuwaiti desert, awaiting further orders.
Prepared for everything from chemical and biological attack to mass U.S.
casualties, the 21st CSH found that its biggest challenge at the outset was
taking up the slack from devastated Iraqi hospitals. The primary role of the
CSH is to treat American and coalition wounded, but according to Army policy,
CSH units will provide emergency care to any Iraqi who is in immediate danger
of losing life, limb, or eyesight—or who has been injured by American
forces.
The program follows several trauma cases that call on all the expertise of the
CSH staff, which includes some of the best ER surgeons in the world. The most
heartrending patients are children. One eight-year-old girl, injured when a
U.S. missile blew up an Iraqi tank, suffered complications during the two weeks
she was trapped at home. In a heroic attempt to save her life, the 21st CSH
doctors arrange to airlift her to a hospital in Michigan—but only if they
can stabilize her condition in preparation for the flight.
"I've got two little girls at home, and I see her and her parents and it breaks
my heart," says anesthesiologist Maj. Christopher Niles, explaining the
extraordinary measures being taken. "It's terrible. It takes a little extra
motivation to try and do the right thing."
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An Army helicopter lands at a captured air base at Balad, Iraq, that became the year-long base for the 21st Combat Support Hospital.
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