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 Afghanistan: New Mexico Army National Guard MEDEVAC crew puts service before self to rescue wounded Marine By Army Capt. Richard Barker and Army Sgt. Daniel Schroeder
                25th Combat Aviation Brigade
 CAMP DWYER, Afghanistan - In the midst of combat, acts of valor and bravery are sometimes performed so often they can sometimes be overlooked. This was almost the case with the story of the Soldiers from the New Mexico Army National Guard's C Company, 1st Battalion, 171st Aviation Regiment who rescued Marine Lance Cpl. Winder Perez. Initially called out to a medical evacuation of a 3-year-old girl who had suffered a gunshot wound and shrapnel to the back, the medevac crew's mission quickly changed. After coordinating with the ground crew, the landing zone controller came over the radio with a loud, frantic voice, "the patient has unexploded ordnance!" The patient was no longer the girl, but Perez, who had a rocket propelled grenade embedded in his leg extending to his lower abdomen. "That call will be in my mind all my life," said Army Sgt. Robert Hardisty, a crew chief with C Company. "First you land thinking it's a little girl and the next thing it is a Marine with an unexploded RPG embedded in his body." Spc. Mark Edens, a flight medic with the unit, was the first to see the RPG round visible in Perez. The round had not detonated, meaning the slightest wrong move could set it off. At this point the crew had to make a decision. "Because of the level of danger, if the crew left Perez on the ground and decided not to take him, no one would have ever blamed them," said Army Maj. Christopher Holland, commander of C Company. "We all would have understood." Army Capt. Kevin Doo, the pilot-in-command for this mission, decided they would only take Perez if the entire crew agreed. "There was no doubt to anyone that we were going to take this Marine and get him the medical attention needed to save his life," said Doo. "When dealing with this, not knowing that any moment could be your last, and 18 inches from the patient's legs was about 360 gallons of aviation fuel." The crew transported Perez as quickly as they safely could, landing at Forward Operating Base Edinburgh about a half hour from the time the RPG hit Perez. "After Lance Cpl. Perez was loaded on the (UH-60) Black hawk, it was a total of 11.2 minutes of flight time where every minute felt like an hour," Doo said. "During that time, we were on the radio coordinating with our escorts, the explosive ordnance disposal team, and medical personnel who were going to treat Perez." Upon hearing the news of the RPG, the medical team on the ground at FOB Edinburgh set a plan in motion to properly and safely remove the round as they gathered necessary supplies and met the helicopter and crew at the landing zone. When Perez arrived, he was transported to a safe area to extract the round with only the necessary personnel present. Navy Lt. Cmdr. James Gennari, department head, Surgical Company B, 2nd Supply Battalion, who treated Perez, noticed the wounds Perez received were life threatening. If he had not been transported by the medevac crew, he would have died of those wounds, said Gennari. After removing the round and closing up the wounds, Perez was transported to another medical facility for further care. The same crew who evacuated him from the battlefield transported him to the next higher medical facility. Although the RPG round was now miles away from Perez, other issues arose for him and the crew. His ventilator failed during the flight prohibiting his oxygen flow. Edens and Hardisty acted rapidly, manually giving him oxygen and bringing the Marine back to a stable condition. "I witnessed Spc. Edens and Sgt. Hardisty work in a calm, cool and professional manner ensuring the safety of this patient who suffered a second near catastrophic event with the loss of the oxygen ventilation machine," said Gennari. The tenacity of the crew paid off and Perez is now recovering from his wounds back in the U.S.
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