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UNMC nursing student and Nebraska Army National Guard soldier Heather Springer prepares for a medevac mission aboard a Nebraska Army National Guard UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter in October 2006 at Balad Air Base, Iraq. Springer recently become only the second known Nebraska Army National Guard woman to receive the Bronze Star Medal for Valor. |
“What am I doing here?” Sgt. Heather Springer wondered to herself as she lie prostrate on the ground near a disabled Humvee, a flurry of bullets whistling by overhead as she struggled to open a canvas litter to rescue a wounded soldier.
It wasn’t all that long ago when Springer’s biggest struggle was over what to do with her life after her initial application to nursing school had been rejected.
Two years later, Springer lay on the hot Iraqi sand where a fellow soldier had pushed her when, while responding for a call to rescue wounded American troops, Springer had suddenly become entwined in enemy fire.
Looking up, the Lincoln-native and UNMC nursing student said she suddenly had a frightening thought.
“Ok. This is real,” she recalled saying to herself. “Now what do I do?”
What Springer did next earned her the DUSTOFF Association’s “DUSTOFF Medic of the Year” award and made her the second female Nebraska National Guard soldier to ever earn the Army Gold Star for Valor.
Pretty amazing accomplishments for a soldier who had never flown in a helicopter before being mobilized in late 2006.
Springer’s journey to Iraq took many turns, beginning when she learned she had not been accepted to nursing school, seemingly putting a childhood dream out of reach.
Springer said as she pondered her future, she started considering military service.
She decided to join the guard’s 110th Medical Battalion Headquarters. Soon thereafter, she left for Texas for six-months of basic and advanced individual medical training designed to prepare her to be a ground medic.
About the same time that she was training in Texas, Springer also found out that her reapplication to nursing school had been accepted. It looked like her dream was back on track again.
Completing training, Springer returned to Nebraska and began attending classes at the College of Nursing’s Lincoln division. About a month into her classes, Springer’s life again turned upside down when, looking at her cell phone, she noticed she had missed four phone calls.
Calling the number back, she learned she was being mobilized with a helicopter unit headed to Iraq.
What Springer didn’t know at the time was that she was just about to become a flying medic … considered by many within medical community to be an elite assignment.
“It’s a tough position to come by, I guess,” she said.
The young soldier soon found herself training with other flying medics at Fort Hood, Texas.
Springer, who had never flown aboard a helicopter before, said she vividly remembers her first flight. She also remembers how no one else seemed to know that she was a rookie.
She said the morning of her first flight, she walked up to the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter where her flight instructor was already standing.
“He did not know that I had never flown before,” she said. “So I walked up there expecting that he would show me what to do … and he doesn’t say anything.
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Soon, members of the flight crew began reading through their pre-flight checklists. Suddenly it was Springer’s turn to chime in with her part of the sequence.
“I just stood there … I’m like, ‘I have no idea what’s going on,'” she said. “That’s when (the flight instructor) realized that I’d never flown before. So, he kind of tutored me through it step-by-step.”
The helicopter was soon aloft, zooming over the rolling hills of the central Texas countryside. Springer said the flight was mesmerizing.
“I was supposed to say, ‘Clear left.’ That was one of my jobs,” she said, adding she didn’t really understand what that meant. And then, she said, it suddenly became clear — she was responsible for telling the pilots whether her side of the helicopter was clear of obstructions that might endanger the aircraft.
After a few weeks, her unit’s training at Fort Hood was at an end and the soldiers, aircraft and their equipment were ordered to move overseas — first to Kuwait and finally into Iraq.
While serving in Iraq, the unit served a critical role, transporting patients from battlefields and facilities in an area stretching from the outskirts of Baghdad to Balad and Baqoubah.
By the time the unit returned to the United States a year later, its crews recorded 3,150 missions and airlifted approximately 5,700 patients to hospitals and medical facilities. Of these, approximately 3,300 patients were American military service members.
Springer flew approximately 200 missions. Her first medevac assignment was unforgettable, she said.
Her patients were wounded Iraqi soldiers who needed to be airlifted from Balad to a hospital in Baghdad.
“I had no idea what to do,” she said. “I know what I’m supposed to do, but I was just so intimidated.
“All I did was hold their hands … that’s all I did,” she said. “I knew they were stable. I knew they were breathing. … I just didn’t know what else to do.”
By July 2007, Springer and her fellow medics were combat veterans. All had seen their helicopters fired on from below. All had saved lives. A few had lost patients.
According to Springer, July 15, 2007, started out pretty much like every other day. It was hot and dusty. Her shift had been long. She was just about ready to call it a day.
Suddenly, about 7:30 a.m., Springer’s crew received a call. Two American soldiers were wounded when their Humvees were struck by improvised explosive devices. The soldiers needed to be rescued.
Worse yet, the landing zone was “hot,” meaning soldiers in the area were still receiving incoming fire.
After conferring with aerial operations coordinators, Springer’s crew received permission to go to the area and pick up the wounded. Springer said the helicopter’s pilots briefed the rest of the crew that they planned to fly over the area and, if all seemed clear, they would then land so that Springer could rescue the patients.
As the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter approached the area, all seemed in order, Springer said.
As soon as the helicopter set down approximately 60 meters from the first of two damaged Humvees, Springer grabbed two collapsible litters and jumped out of the aircraft, moving toward the closest armored vehicle.
About 10 meters from the Humvee, an infantryman approached Springer and motioned her to the first wounded soldier.
“I started opening up a litter, kicking it open to stand it upright. All of a sudden somebody grabs me from behind and throws me on the ground,” she said. “I look up at him and he said, ‘We’re taking small arms fire!'”
Springer said she continued to kick open the litter while sitting on the ground. At the same time, she did a quick evaluation of the injured soldier. She noticed that not much had been done to treat his injuries, which Springer said struck her as odd at the time.
“Usually the medics on ground are fantastic about bandaging up things and having them ready to go. And with this guy, there was nothing … all I could see was that his left foot was completely turned inward. You could tell that his foot was no longer attached to his leg.”
Springer said she later learned that the soldier was the platoon medic. He had been sitting in the Humvee when the IED exploded.
“It just crushed his foot,” she said. “He wasn’t bloody or anything … just this misshaped foot.”
She and the nearby infantryman then carefully loaded the patient onto the litter as other soldiers began to strap him down.
Springer said she then began thinking about the second wounded soldier.
“I know that I have to get to the second patient and look at him,” she said. “So I look at this guy who threw me on the ground, and I’m like, ‘Is it safe to go?’ And he’s like, ‘Yep.”‘
Springer then ran approximately 10 meters to where the other wounded soldier had been placed by his comrades.
Checking his wounds, Springer said she found that he had been grazed in the abdomen by a bullet. It was a bad wound, but not critical.
“I then made the decision that the first patient was more critical,” she said. “He needed to go right now. I decided that I wanted to take him first in case something happened and we needed to take off, at least I’d have the most critical on board with me.”
Springer and her armed guard again started moving, this time back toward the first vehicle. Suddenly the air around them exploded with more small arms fire.
At that point, Springer said she was struck by an incredible fear.
“I’m stuck back here 80 meters away from my aircraft and we’re briefed that if something like that happens and the aircraft becomes in jeopardy and I’m on the ground, they’ll leave me and come back (later) to get me,” she said. “So, I’m thinking, there’s no way they are going to leave me here. And I knew that this patient had to go right now.”
Suddenly, the young nursing student and soldier became a leader.
“I looked at this guy and said, ‘We have to go,'” Springer said.
“He’s like, ‘We can’t go. We can’t go,'” she said. “And I’m like, ‘Yes, we’re going.’ And I grabbed him and asked him to cover me.”
Running up to the first wounded soldier, Springer looked at each of the four soldiers who would serve as litter bearers and explained her plan.
“On the count of three, we’re going to lift and then we’re going to run as fast as we can,” Springer recalled telling her helpers.
They had just started to move when once again small arms fire broke out around them.
“I just looked at them and I still had the thought in my head that I’m going to get left here if I don’t make it back to my aircraft. And this guy needs to go,” she said. “We just ran … really fast.
“And by the grace of God …,” Springer said, her voice trailing off.
Later, Springer said she was surprised to have found the strength she needed to tell the others what to do. It simply isn’t — or at least wasn’t — in her perceived nature.
“It’s so interesting to be in that situation because I’m not a confrontational ‘I’m going to tell you how it is’ kind of person,” she said. “But I guess when you get in the situation and they look to you … you’re the flight medic.”
“They always call us their angels. You get off the aircraft and (they) need you so badly. They look to you to tell them the right thing to do,” Springer added. “And at that moment, that was the right thing to do.”
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UNMC nursing student Heather Springer, right, joins, from left, Sgt. Mike Robinson, Chief Warrant Officer Paul Robinson and Chief Warrant Officer Brent Foster for a crew photo on the flight line at Balad Air Base, Iraq, in November 2006. |
“(The soldier kept saying) ‘Don’t touch my legs. don’t touch my leg,” Springer said. “He later told me that he gave himself 20 milligrams of morphine, which is quite a bit.”
After setting the litter up, Springer suddenly saw that the second wounded soldier was being moved toward her.
“At that point, I wasn’t going to leave that second patient,” she said.
Telling the pilot what she wanted to do, she received permission to get off the helicopter to load the patient.
After loading the second patient, one of the litter bearers said that a third soldier needed to be rescued but wasn’t ready to be moved at that moment. The pilot decided they would come back for the third wounded soldier.
Within a few minutes, the helicopter was landing at the hospital. Springer said her mind was spinning as she rattled off her report to the medical staff there.
A few moments later a call came in — the third soldier was now ready to be moved.
Springer was terrified by the thought of going back to the scene but she followed the orders of the pilot and headed back into the combat zone.
This time everything went smoothly and within a few moments the third patient was aboard and the helicopter was heading back to the base.
On Aug. 24, Springer and the rest of her Nebraska Guard unit arrived back in Lincoln to a heroes’ welcome.
About that same time, Springer said, she learned from her unit leaders that she was being submitted for the annual “DUSTOFF Medic of the Year Award” for her efforts on July 15.
The DUSTOFF Association is a nonprofit incorporated veterans’ organization for the Army Medical Department’s enlisted and officer personnel, aviation crewmembers and others who have actively supported Army aeromedical evacuation programs in war or peace.
DUSTOFF stands for Dedicated Unhesitating Service to Our Fighting Forces.
Springer said she really didn’t think too much about awards at the time. She had a life to get back to.
In January, Springer was preparing to go to class for her first real week of nursing school when she again received a phone call from a strange number. Answering the phone, she heard the voice of her company first sergeant, Harrison Manko, telling her she had won the DUSTOFF Medic of the Year award.
“I didn’t know what to say,” said Springer, who was sitting in her car at the time.
Manko also told her she would receive a Bronze Star for Valor.
“I was just speechless. I didn’t know what to say,” Springer said. “I was driving in my car downtown, forgetting where I was going. I was going to school and I ended up being like five minutes late to class because I started driving the other direction.”
But the awards aren’t all Springer gained in Iraq. In a way, the entire experience, she said, stays with her.
“I think about it a thousand times a day,” she said. “I see the faces and tasks and patients. And sometimes, when I’m driving down the road, I’ll think about a specific mission or a specific patient that I had who did not make it. I wouldn’t say that they haunt me, but I carry them all of the time.”