Air Force aircraft, aeromedical crews evacuate injured New York Times photographer from Afghanistan

Published Oct. 25, 2010
By Capt. Justin Brockhoff
618th Air and Space Operations Center

SCOTT AIR FORCE BASE, Ill. -- An Air Force C-17 Globemaster III and its crew aeromedically evacuated a New York Times photographer from Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan, to Ramstein Air Base, Germany, early Sunday, after the 44-year-old man was injured by a land mine in Kandahar province.

Joao Silva, a veteran war photographer based in South Africa, was embedded with an Army patrol when the explosion occurred. According to a report by the New York Times, Mr. Silva continued to shoot pictures while he was being treated by medics on the ground.

Shortly after the explosion, a helicopter evacuated Mr. Silva to a military hospital where he underwent surgery and received treatment for other wounds. Once stabilized, he was transported to Bagram Airfield, near Kabul, where doctors provided further care and prepared him for the flight to Ramstein.

Mission planning for the flight from Bagram to Ramstein was accomplished by the 618th Air and Space Operations Center at Scott AFB, Ill., the lead agency for worldwide military airlift, air refueling and aeromedical evacuation operations. 618th AOC officials plan and task global air mobility missions, and provide command-and-control for the missions from the AOC's 24-7 operations floor.

"We received the request for aeromedical evacuation and immediately started to find the nearest aircraft available to fly the mission," said Master Sgt. Keyser Voigt, a senior mission controller with the 618th AOC. "Time is critical, so we needed to act fast. In this case, there was already a C-17 on the ground at Bagram, so were able to task it to fly the mission."

The C-17 crew, assigned to Air Force Reserve's 446th Airlift Wing at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash., arrived to Bagram just four hours earlier on a mission delivering equipment from the Army's 10th Combat Aviation Brigade. The aircrew was joined by a Critical Care Aeromedical Transport Team, consisting of a doctor, nurse, and critical care specialist, and an Aeromedical Evacuation Team of two additional flight nurses and three aeromedical evacuation technicians, during the mission.

The aircraft departed Bagram early Sunday and arrived into Ramstein seven hours later. In addition to Mr. Silva, the C-17 carried 32 patients that had been injured in non-related events, 11 of which were combat injuries. Once at Ramstein, Mr. Silva and the patients with him were transported to the nearby Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, the largest U.S. military hospital outside of the United States.

Aeromedical evacuation plays a critical role in global military operations daily, including in current operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2010, AMC aircrews and aeromedical evacuation crews have performed more than 16,000 patient movements worldwide, averaging out to nearly 60 patient movements per day.

"Our aeromedical teams will do anything we can to get someone that's injured to the definitive medical care they need," said Maj. Charles Marek, chief of the 618th AOC's aeromedical evacuation branch. "Being part of the aeromedical evacuation community means we get to help save lives every day, and as long as we have troops in harm's way, or people like Mr. Silva telling their story, we'll do everything we can to give them the care they need."

AE