POST D-DAY SURGICAL STORY

 WEDNESDAY JUNE 7, 2023

Yesterday was the 79th anniversary of D-Day. Today and tomorrow a D-Day story

*****

Corporal Marvin Helms was tired.  He might have been “dead tired”, but that wouldn’t have been an appropriate word today.  Cpt Helms was a medic with the First Division of the Army that had literally crawled their way onto Omaha beach yesterday. 

Operation Overlord was a success.  D-Day was over.  But on this day after D-Day, Corporal Helms couldn’t rest.  

There had been a few medics in the early attack, and all the men had taken a course in first aid, but “first” aid wasn’t ongoing aid.  The 41st Medic Company was the last group to land at Omaha Beach.  The 41st medics had 2,000 men ranging from general practitioners to surgeons, to surgical teams, recuperative nurses, and orderlies.  If you consider something like Johns Hopkins Medical facilities are ‘state-of-the-art’ in medical procedures, the 41st Medic Company was like a mobile version of Johns Hopkins.  

By daybreak on June 6, 1944, approximately 18,000 British and American parachutists were already on the ground. An additional 13,000 aircraft were mobilized to provide air cover and support for the invasion.  Gold, Juno, and Sword beaches received only light resistance, but the First Division was almost at the wrong place at the wrong time.  

But by late afternoon, the German machine gunners had been silenced, and the Americans had established themselves on the heights overlooking the English Channel.  And, by late afternoon, the Air Force was dropping hospital equipment in the newly won territory.  

There was some news of the success, but Cpt Helms had been too busy to hear much.  It was a record-setting day for Cpl Helms - as he went through 12 pairs of scrubs.  He didn’t count how many gallons of coffee he drank, but it probably was a personal best as well.  

Generators ran twenty-four hours, feeding light and power to the operating theaters. 

Corporal Helms had been a doctor in New Haven Connecticut at Yale Hospital.  He didn’t want to be a soldier but had been drafted and his skills were appropriate to the 41st Medic group.  He had gotten four hours of sleep last night, but now at 0800, he was back in surgery.  His first patient of the day was Jack Podensky, a Second Lieutenant from Athens Georgia.  Jack has a bullet someplace in his right lung.  Triage had stopped the bleeding and put Lieutenant Podensky on oxygen for the night.  Now, Marvin Helm had to find the bullet and carefully remove it, without opening an artery, breaking any bones, and without any further damage to Lieutenant Podensky.  The surgical lamps were close to the quality of Yale Hospital as Marvin took his sterile scalpel to Jack Podensky’s chest.  Marvin’s aides this morning were Howard Addison from Lincoln, Nebraska, and Garrett Bradbury from Athens, Georgia.  Howard and Garrett had made an incision in the epidermis of Jack Podensky beneath where the bullet went in. Using a probe, Marvin Helms found the bullet that was lodged in Podensky’s chest.  The wound had closed some overnight, but with surgery, blood was oozing.  Addison and Bradbury were trying to keep the incision clear so Marvin could pull out the bullet.  Easier said than done, but Marvin caught the end of the bullet in his forceps, and as gently as he could, pulled the bullet out.  Beads of sweat formed on Marvin’s head as he slowly worked the bullet to where it had entered the chest.

Done - well, not really done.  A recovery team took over while Marvin, Howard, and Garrett got a cup of coffee, a cigarette, and a sandwich.  They sat on three chairs next to a tent wall.  

But, fifteen minutes later, another soldier, Nick Muse, was wheeled into their mobile surgery theater.  This one wasn’t at all the same - a broken tibia.  Like many broken bones from the past day, this wasn’t a clean bread, but a jagged break - like a bullet had hit and shattered the bone.  “F*CK,” Marvin thought.  How much tibia was missing?  Could he patch it up, put splints on it or would Nick have to have an artificial leg?  Marvin asked Howard and Garrett, both of whom had worked in surgical settings as civilians.  Howard spoke first “I think we have enough of the bone to piece it together.”  Garrett nodded his agreement.  

So, the three worked together to piece Nick’s leg together.  If Nick had been a runner, he probably wouldn’t be doing any sprints anymore.  He would probably limp, but he would still have two legs.  An hour and one half later, Nick Muse was wheeled out to recovery.  More wounded men were waiting, but the commander of the 41st Medic Company knew that tired surgical teams made stupid mistakes.  The team had a two-hour break - food and nap (or nap and food)

Marvin Helms found an open cot and immediately fell asleep. Two hours later, he was awakened by Garrett Bradbury.  “Hey Boss, you’re wanted in surgery.”

Two large cups of Army Coffee later, and another set of scrubs, the team had an amputation.  Marcus Davenport had a fragment of a left leg and there were no leftover parts.  The team cleaned up the wound, removed the remaining tibia and fibula parts, capped off the femur at the kneecap, and sent Marcus Davenport on to recovery.  Howard Addison remarked, “Hey that's pretty easy.”.  Marvin laughed.  It was gallows humor - a joke of three surgeons working together.

The next serviceman was a marine.  He was barely breathing and the trio put a mask over his nose and mouth and pumped in oxygen.  He had at least two gunshots.  The most serious was through his left kidney.  He could survive on one kidney but not with the loss of blood.  The shot had gone clean through him, so they didn’t have to dig to find a leftover bullet.  The standard procedure was to remove the kidney, graft in a major artery, and a major vein over the absent kidney, and stitch them up.  Garrett looked at where the bullet had gone, through the lower right tail of the left kidney.  As such, the kidney was almost working.  If they could tie off the blood flow and isolate that lower right tail, the marine would have a kidney and one-half - which is better than one kidney.  

The second gunshot was through the femur - shattered to pieces.  His leg would need to be amputated at the hip.  He would either have a whole prosthetic leg or use crutches for the rest of his life.  

Garrett asked Marvin Helm if he could try kidney surgery.  Two hours later, the team had a semi-functioning left kidney plus the fully functional right kidney.  There was another group in a neighboring operating theater that could handle the leg amputation.

After another short break, and two more cups of coffee, the paramedics wheeled in the last patient of the day.  Another lung pierced, but this time it was the left lung, about 2 inches to the northwest of the heart - a delicate place to operate. There was no exit wound, so the bullet would still be inside the man’s body. 

This time Howard Addison did the lead surgery role.  Marvin and Garrett prepped the man, and Howard found the projectile and started sliding it out.  The bullet had cracked the man’s ribs.  Howard had some bone putty to coalesce the wound, but as he started to work the putty into the man’s abdomen, Howard just shut his eyes and slid to the ground.  And, in about five seconds, Garrett also fainted, Marvin - started towards the door and collapsed at the end of the tent.  

It was maybe five minutes until an MP outside the tent noticed there wasn’t any talking in the operating theater.  He pulled back the tent flap that served as a door and saw the three men on the ground, and the patient on the operating table.  He suspected foul play and yelled for help to three MPs that were patrolling around the neighboring tents.  Joshua Oliver, the first MP to notice the men, stepped into the tent and started pulling Marvin Helm out, then Garrett Bradbury, and as he got to Howard Addison, he too fainted.  Outside of the tent, Marvin and Garrett were reviving to smelling salts passed under their noses.  

“What happened”” asked Joshua Oliver. “I was just patrolling the area and all of a sudden it was quiet and I saw that these three were passed out on the ground.”

One of the other operating crews had just finished, and Joshua Oliver interrupted them to say, “Could you come to check on the surgical team in tent A-5”.

Then there was a sound inside the tent, and looking in saw the operating table smoldering and gray smoke rising towards the top.  The body on the table looked like it was also burning.  Josh grabbed another MP and quickly pulled the man out.  He seemed dead and a green substance was roiling in the incision area.  

*****

To be finished tomorrow!!!

LOVE WINS

Karen White, June 7, 2023