Groundbreaking Care for Soliders in Iraq
During the Vietnam War, 75 percent of wounded soldiers survived; today that number is 87 percent, thanks to innovations in body armor and surgical care. Photographer Lynsey Addario captures the immediacy of battlefield surgery in Balad, Iraq, 50 miles north of Baghdad—for both traumatized soldiers and the frantic medics who provide care.
Lynsey Addario / VII Network
Marine Matt Piano, 23, lies wounded in an airplane at Balad Air Base in Iraq, 50 miles north of Baghdad.
Lynsey Addario / VII Network
U.S. Army Reservist and Registered Nurse Marja Amador, 25, wipes blood from the face of a wounded soldier in the emergency room of the hospital at Balad Air Base.
Lynsey Addario / VII Network
A U.S. soldier waits to give blood as a wounded comrade on a stretcher receives treatment in the emergency room of the hospital at Balad Air Base.
Lynsey Addario / VII Network
Wounded U.S. soldiers are transported from the Contingency Aeromedical Staging Facility, CASF, via a school bus to a plane.
Lynsey Addario / VII Network
First Sgt. Robert Stratton, 35, visits with an injured fellow soldier in Balad on Nov. 15, 2004. Stratton's supply mission was mortared on its way north. Both soldiers are with the National Guard out of Ohio.
Lynsey Addario / VII Network
U.S. military surgeons meet with a wounded soldier as he gets off the helicopter outside of the emergency room of the hospital at Balad Air Base.
Lynsey Addario / VII Network
Lance Cpl. Kyle Blumenstock, 19, sits in the emergency room of the Balad Hospital. Blumenstock received shrapnel wounds to his face and had both of his eardrums blown out.
Lynsey Addario / VII Network
Injured U.S. soldiers lie on stretchers in the airplane en route to Germany.
Lynsey Addario / VII Network
With his family beside him, wounded Lance Cpl. W.C. Ross lies in the portable intensive care unit of an airplane en route to Germany from Balad.
Lynsey Addario / VII Network
U.S. military personnel help load injured soldiers onto a cargo plane en route to Germany.
Lynsey Addario / VII Network
Wounded U.S. soldiers are transported from the Contingency Aeromedical Staging Facility, CASF, via a school bus to a plane headed to Germany.
Lynsey Addario / VII Network
A U.S. military surgeon sleeps while watching a football game at the hospital at the Balad Air Base.
Lynsey Addario / VII Network
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