The surgeon soldiers
How Army doctors set a record of the world’s highest-altitude major surgery
S.G. Vombatkere
The soldier protects our nation’s
borders with determination, grit and courage, living and fighting all along our
Himalayan borders from Ladakh in the west to Arunachal in the east.
A soldier’s life in forward areas
is extremely tough. In high-altitude areas (HAA, in Army parlance), it is
doubly so because the oxygen intake is halved. Low oxygen, combined with
sub-zero temperatures further lowered by wind-chill, seriously affects physical
efficiency, as anyone who has served at altitudes of over 12,000 ft (3,700 m)
knows. Even routine activities are necessarily slow and difficult, sometimes
even painful. Prolonged isolation and loneliness are an additional
psychological burden.
Extreme cold, low oxygen intake
and treacherous terrain combine as an ever-present risk to life and limb for
every soldier, quite apart from the risks of the enemy’s bullet, grenade, bomb
and shell.
In these harsh conditions, the
soldier-doctors of the Army Medical Corps (AMC) provide succour and help to the
injured or ill soldier, right up to the forward areas, with provision for
medical evacuation to hospitals, when necessary.
A soldier was treated for
appendicitis by Army doctors. This would not even deserve mention but for the
fact that the surgery was successfully performed at an altitude of 16,000 ft
(4,900 m). The delicate, major surgical procedure was conducted in one of the
HAA Forward Surgical Centres (FSCs) constructed in a partially underground
dug-out space equipped with a field operating theatre.
On October 28, a 27-year-old
jawan (name, unit and location withheld for security reasons) was brought to
the FSC with acute abdominal pain. It was rapidly diagnosed as appendicitis,
with risk of rupture and fatal consequences. There was no time to evacuate the
jawan to a hospital. Immediate surgery was imperative.
The young surgical team
consisting of a surgeon and an anaesthetist, assisted by the jawan’s unit MO
(names withheld for ethical reasons), rose to the occasion. They took the
decision to perform an emergency appendectomy.
According to details received, surgery
was commenced under spinal anaesthesia but since the appendix was subhepatic
with impending perforation, they had to convert to general anaesthesia. Major
surgery was completed successfully in harsh and difficult field conditions. The
patient had an uneventful post-operative condition and remained medically
stable.
This sets a creditable
military-medical record of the world’s highest altitude major surgery, to add
to the proud military traditions of India’s Army Medical Corps.
A soldier’s precious life was saved, thanks to the timely decision and competence of the battle-front saviours in the FSC.
The author was commissioned into the Madras Sappers in 1962. In 1993,
he was awarded the Vishisht Seva Medal (VSM). He retired in 1996 in the rank of
Major General. sg9kere@live.com
