THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, August 24, 1994 TAG: 9408240518
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DENNIS JOYCE, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PORTSMOUTH LENGTH: Medium: 75 lines
With only a dozen or so patients a day for their people to worry about, Navy officers advised everyone in Field Hospital 5 to bring along plenty of reading material for their assignment in Croatia.
Everyone, that is, except those in orthopedics. And physical therapy. They were specially chosen to treat the most common battle injury coming into the hospital - the work of mines planted and then abandoned as the front shifts in the 4-year-old civil war in the former Yugoslavia.
``We were told we'd see a lot of people with limbs blown off, a lot of amputees,'' said Petty Officer 2nd Class Paul Comegys, a Navy physical therapy technician and one of 231 members of Fleet Hospital 5 who left Hampton Roads for Croatia on Tuesday.
``We'll get them prostheses, teach them how to walk,'' Comegys said. ``We'll have them for months in rehabilitation.''
The Portsmouth-based command will take over a field hospital in Zagreb that serves members of the United Nations Protection Forces - the blue-helmeted international army of 40,000 that is charged with enforcing whatever gains toward peace have been made in the region.
Battle-related injuries account for only about a quarter of all the cases handled at the hospital. Another quarter are industrial-type accidents, and half are illnesses. In the past six months, the hospital treated about 9,000 patients.
But mines maim and kill indiscriminately, said Capt. Gregg S. Parker of Portsmouth, commanding officer of Field Hospital 5. So as soon as they land in Zagreb, before they even sleep, the members of his group will get a one-hour briefing on avoiding the devices.
Three million is a rough estimate of how many mines are buried in the former Yugoslavia, and where they are is anybody's guess. But Parker's safety lesson is a simple one.
``Basically, if it's paved, you can walk on it. If it's grass, don't,'' he said. ``There are mines within 300 yards of the hospital.''
For members of Fleet Hospital 5 - the doctors, nurses, corpsmen and support people - it's not the added dangers but the six-month deployment on land that makes the Croatia assignment special. The Navy group succeeds an Army contingent that has been staffing the 2-year-old hospital for the past six months.
Petty Officer 2nd Class John Brown normally helps fire rounds of ammunition from ship to shore as a gunner's mate. At the field hospital, he'll help Marines maintain the armory.
``It's a little different than being aboard ship,'' said Brown, who has been going to sea six months at a time for 10 years. ``Usually you don't have to deal with people, or see the casualties ashore.''
Comegys, who works in physical therapy, approaches the assignment with some reluctance.
``I've been around the world three times on a ship, but I've never been with a shore command like this.''
Seaman apprentice Jayme Montgomery doesn't know any better. This is her first deployment. A 20-year-old dental assistant, she was working at the Sewell's Point medical clinic and volunteered for the Croatia duty.
After send-off ceremonies Tuesday at Portsmouth Naval Medical Center, where Navy brass cheered on the group in its fatigues and U.N.-blue berets, Montgomery clutched a blue and pink bunny she's bringing along.
``I got it from my mom for Easter,'' she said. ``It's something to remember her by.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color staff photos by Bill Tiernan
Petty Officer 2nd Class Louis Kost says goodbye. He'll be gone for
six months.
Rear Adm. Harold M. Koenig talks with Petty Officer 1st Class Barb
Shippy. Advice to the departing group: Watch out for land mines.
by CNB