Surgical team on second tsunami relief deployment

In theatre: LCpl Donna Firth and Capt Anthony Chambers, both of 1HSB, operate on a patient.

By Pte Shannon Joyce

THE medical teams from 1HSB, currently treating casualties of the tsunami in Banda Aceh, have dealt with injuries from this type of disaster before.

Surgeons from the Parachute Surgical Team (PST) drew on their previous experience gained in the town of Aitape, Papua New Guinea, where a tsunami struck as a result of an earthquake off the north coast in July 1998.

2IC 1HSB Maj Eraine La Galle said she had quite a few personnel in Banda Aceh and Medan, who were sent to the tsunami in PNG.

“A PST was immediately deployed [to Aitape PNG] on news of the disaster, and did a phenomenal amount of operations,” she said.

“But it never fully prepares you for the types of casualties that come from such a horrific disaster that faces our surgeons here in Sumatra at the moment.”

Maj La Galle said aside from broken bones and wounds, tsunami victims inhale filthy water into their lungs, which can cause pneumonia.

“People [were] dying 10 days after the disaster because of massive lung infections,” she said.

Maj La Galle said because of the delay in some casualties reaching medical assistance, the standard Red Cross principles of infection control were applied.

“This treatment involves leaving wounds open, keeping them open, and cleaning them out every couple of days surgically, until the wound is clean, and then the wound is closed up,” she said.

“This principle of delayed wound closure is a very well established one, which had been developed through the wars, and is a very basic system of war surgery that works.”

1HSB medical teams have responded to a number of crises in recent years, with personnel having deployed to the Niue cyclone last year, treating Bali bombing victims and being part of peace-monitoring deployments.

Maj La Galle said none of those deployments, especially the current Operation Sumatra Assist, would be possible without the reserve surgeons and anaesthetists.

“This whole effort would have fallen apart if it wasn’t for them.”