Inside SEAL Team Six(67)

While the SBU-26 guys were cleaning and disinfecting the boat, the CWO and the master chief were doing their engineering and mechanical work to ensure the vessel was fit to transport. It was my job to inspect the hull, shaft, and screw to see if the underside of the boat had sustained any damage during the attack.

Typically in the Navy, we dove with swim buddies. But I was the only one doing this inspection dive. So after I suited up and started to make my way down the ladder, I said to the master chief, “If you need me for anything, just bang three times on the deck and I’ll surface.”

The master chief picked up something that looked like a small pipe and banged it on the deck of the boat.

“How’s this?” he asked.

“Great.”

My dive took about forty minutes. There wasn’t any obvious damage to the hull, shaft, or screw, and though I hadn’t heard any banging, the master chief did tap a bit about the boat, taking soundings.

Soon after I surfaced, we attached the enemy craft to our patrol boat and towed it to Fort Amador. We arrived at about 1600, tied the Panamanian boat to the pier, and set up a large GPL (general-purpose large) tent about thirty meters from our boat. Opposite the tent, about fifty meters from the ship, was a big Dumpster. Behind us stood the fire department, which was adjacent to the Army’s jungle survival school.

We heard sporadic shooting and rocket explosions in the distance.

Once we got the tent up, I said, “Guys, throw those old bloodied uniforms in the Dumpster, then take a break. You’ve been working hard.”

A few minutes later, three Army guys walked over to our PB—Captain Mike O’Brien, a major, and a sergeant.

Captain O’Brien asked, “Do you mind if we take the stuff, the uniforms, you’re throwing away? We’re starting a war museum.”

I said, “Sure. Help yourself.”

Captain O’Brien and the sergeant jumped in the Dumpster and started handing stuff out to the major. Then the sergeant climbed out.

Sometime during the day, that piece of pipe that the master chief had banged on the deck of the boat and then used to take soundings throughout the vessel had gone in the Dumpster.

I was sitting in the tent at around 2145 hours when I heard a tremendous boom.

Captain Mike O’Brien had leaned over to pick up the pipe, which really was a live LAW rocket round, and it had exploded. (Typically you would never see a LAW rocket round outside of its tube.)

All of us in the tent grabbed our weapons. I ran outside in the dark and saw trash scattered everywhere.

The major and the sergeant were screaming, “Help! Get help!”

We all had our first-line gear and second-line gear next to our cots—which included weapons—and I had my Special Forces medical kit, which was part of my second-line gear. I did what combat medics are trained to do in medical emergencies first: establish that the scene is safe.

The major and sergeant were screaming but weren’t hurt.

Captain O’Brien lay on the ground outside the Dumpster looking about as dead as a person could look. His left lower leg above the knee had been blown a hundred meters away. His right hand and most of the fingers on his left hand were gone. Both of his eyes were hanging out of the sockets by the optic nerves. And thousands of pieces of shrapnel had ripped into his face and body.

All of the combat medical training I’d received immediately kicked into place. I looked at his chest and listened and felt for any signs of breath from his mouth and nose. I saw that his chest was rising, which meant that he had an airway and was still breathing. His upper left arm had a major arterial wound that was pumping out fresh bright red blood. I covered it with my hand and then quickly applied a blowout patch.

His left femur was completely exposed. But with a traumatic amputation like that, the vessels constrict and seal up, so the bleeding was minimal.

The major knelt beside me. The sergeant, some Army Rangers, and all of the SBU guys eagerly offered to assist me.

I opened my SF medical bag—which was a little bigger than a one-day backpack—and started issuing instructions.

I said, “You. Take this Kerlix and wrap up that leg.

“You, wrap that arm.”

All the time I was talking to the captain, saying, “Sir, we are going to take good care of you, you are in good hands, my buddy is going to place a bandage over your hand.” And so on.

In a serious injury you need to calmly talk to the patient. Hearing is the last sense to go before death. Even when the patient doesn’t respond, there’s a chance that his hearing you might prevent him from going into a deeper stage of shock. In the unfortunate cases where the patient doesn’t survive, at least the last thing he hears is a friendly soothing voice.