The nature of modern warfare doesn’t just mean challenges for treating human casualties. The Army is also training medics to better treat wounded military dogs on the frontlines.
Transcript
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
The changing nature of modern warfare is making it harder to get medical supplies to the front lines and safely evacuate casualties. Those are challenges that apply to wounded military dogs too. Jay Price reports from Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
UNIDENTIFIED INSTRUCTOR: This is your normal, happy resting position for a dog that’s sitting like…
JAY PRICE, BYLINE: The furry patient was unconscious, had an obvious leg wound and was struggling for air.
UNIDENTIFIED INSTRUCTOR: And, yeah, you’re in.
PRICE: In went a breathing tube, past a set of teeth that were pretty fearsome, even though they were fake.
UNIDENTIFIED INSTRUCTOR: So then once he’s in, you’ll basically take and close the mouth down. You’d be able to give oxygen.
PRICE: The patient, a sophisticated 60-pound mannequin dog named Diesel, could simulate a pulse and breathing and could even growl and whimper.
UNIDENTIFIED INSTRUCTOR: Take this out, and we don’t have a tip here to hold it in place. But now you’d be good, right?
PRICE: The most unusual thing about this training exercise was who was getting the training from the veterinarians – a group of army medics whose normal job is keeping humans alive on the front lines. The lessons included basics like how to muzzle a dog, stop bleeding, dose drugs, treat a collapsed lung and reading dogs’ body language about their condition. Captain Karen Hood, a veterinary Corps officer with the Fort Bragg-based 44th Medical Brigade, was helping with the training. She says veterinarians do deploy for combat, but typically are kept well back from the front lines.
KAREN HOOD: Having a medic at the point of injury can make a really big impact, even if it’s just stopping a dog from bleeding out. That could be enough to save its life.
PRICE: That’s become especially important on modern battlefields where enemies can have swarms of drones overhead around the clock, making it all but impossible to quickly evacuate the wounded – human or canine. And the Army is not only cross-training medics, it’s also working to improve its practices for canine casualty care.
EMILY CORBIN: We have several groups in the Department of War who’ve collected and digitized the medical records from our working dogs in combat and beyond, and we’re currently collating this data in conjunction with the Joint Trauma System, who has already done all of this for our human warfighter trauma records.
PRICE: Lieutenant Colonel Emily Corbin is in the U.S. Army Veterinary Corps. She leads two departments at the Army Institute of Surgical Research.
CORBIN: We can mine that data to determine the knowledge gaps where we need more research.
PRICE: An early study using the data has underlined that wounded dogs often pose the same medical challenges as wounded soldiers. Blood loss, for example, is a top cause of trauma-related mortality for both.
CORBIN: So the same things that we’re researching for the human side, we’re also researching on the canine side. For example, strategies for shelf-stable blood products that could be carried to the remote warfront and remain shelf stable without needing cold supply chain, like whole blood.
PRICE: The Defense Department has about 1,600 military working dogs. Their jobs include finding bombs, sniffing out drugs, tracking people and providing nonlethal force, and the efforts to improve their trauma care are part of a progression toward regarding them more like teammates. Until the year 2000, when a law opened them up for adoption, military dogs were treated as equipment and typically euthanized when their service ended. Thousands were left behind or killed when the Vietnam War ended. Attitudes are different now.
CORBIN: They are treated similarly to our service members. They’re considered service members. They’re amazing animals. Their athleticism, their work drive, their ability to be a force multiplier is just so humbling.
PRICE: Military dogs can also represent a sizable government investment of more than $75,000 each. So there’s real-world incentive to keeping them healthy. But even that dollar figure may pale in comparison to the incalculable emotional tug they have on many soldiers.
For NPR News, I’m Jay Price at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
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