Insurgents severely wound children during attack
 By Sgt. Spencer Case , 304th Public Affairs Detachment
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 PAKTYA PROVINCE, Afghanistan (Sept. 20, 2010) — An Election Day mortar incident that  injured two children gave the Afghan National Security Forces a chance  to show they had improved coordination among military and civilian  hospitals. The drama began at approximately 10 a.m., Sept. 18, when insurgents in  Kharwar District, Ghazni province, began a firefight with coalition  forces. During the crossfire, a mortar landed on a house, injuring two  children. An 8-year old suffered a shrapnel wound to the head and his  12-year-old cousin received less serious shrapnel wounds to the lower  extremities.  The father of the younger boy, who was also the uncle of the elder of  the village, happened to be a doctor. After he cared for the boys and  saw they needed more complex care than he could provide, he drove them  to a nearby coalition forces installation, Combat Outpost Kharwar. That afternoon, U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Stephen Townsend, the deputy  commander of Combined Joint Task Force-101, visited COP Kharwar to  attend security briefings related to the elections. While he was outside  the wire at a nearby polling center, he learned of the incident through  an interpreter.  A medical evacuation request was being placed to take the two injured  children to a higher care center. Townsend decided it would be quicker  to take them on his Black Hawk helicopter. “It just so happened that we were going anyway, so we decided to take  them with us,” Townsend said. “We’ve done this kind of thing before.” At about 4:40 p.m., Townsend’s helicopter touched down on the helipad  near the Afghan National Army-run Paktya Regional Medical Hospital at  Forward Operating Base Thunder, Paktya province.  “I am very glad and appreciate that the Americans have taken care of my  son,” said the injured boy’s father, whose name is withheld for security  reasons. “I did not expect we would go the medical facility by  helicopter.” U.S. Air Force physician Maj. Robert Sarlay Jr., an advisor to the  hospital with the Medical Embedded Training Team there, mentored the  Afghan physicians who provided care to the younger child in the  emergency room.  Although doctors were able to stabilize the child’s condition to a  “stable, but guarded” level, the child needed to be examined by a  neurologist. For this, a patient transfer was needed. Traditionally,  hospital-to-hospital communication has been one of the biggest hurdles  of the Afghans, said U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. David V. Gill, the FOB  Lightning METT commander. Fortunately this time, the system showed signs  of progress.  Arrangements were made by the National Military Hospital in Kabul to  transfer the child to nearby Indira Gandhi Children’s Hospital in Kabul.  That hospital later determined that they were unable to provide the  needed level of care to the child, and so he was sent instead to the  French “Role 3” hospital at Kabul International Airport. “We had good communications with our counterparts at the Military  National Hospital in Kabul and the hospital commander [at Paktya  Regional Medical Hospital] communicated well with his counterpart at the  Military National Hospital,” said Gill, a Fairhope, Ala., resident. Sarlay of Dayton, Ohio, added, “Getting the Afghan National Security  Forces, the Afghan National Army in this case, to coordinate and  cooperate with the civilian Ministry of Health system for these  civilians to get appropriate definitive medical care [is incredible].  When I first got here, I would have laughed if you had told me we could  do something like this.” As of the evening of Sept. 19, the 12-year-old remains in the intensive  care unit at the Paktya Regional Medical Hospital. The 8-year-old is at  the French Role-3 Hospital in Kabul with his father. He remains in  “stable, but guarded” condition.