Your Typical Monday Night

Around 11pm we all received a call for 8 incoming Marines, wounds from a VBIED (vehicle borne IED - big). Turns out the bad guys attempted to drive a very large truck filled with explosives into their position, but the Marines were able to hold him off at a distance, where he detonated himself once he realized he couldn't get any closer. Even at a distance, the blast still took out the front of the building the Marines were in, and several of the Marines were thrown around (one said he was thrown 30 feet back). No serious injuries (relatively speaking), mainly shrapnel and ruling out concussions. No nurse flights needed for these guys.
Earlier that day, an 18 month old boy was brought in after a 10 foot fall. Baby was fine overall, but we needed to have a CT scan done to verify that there was no head injury. When I was sent out here, it didn't really occur to me that I would be doing full spinal immobilization on an 18 month old, using blankets, tape, and a CPR board. It worked out remarkably well, he was sent to a higher level facility where the CT scan could be done. I found it remarkable that while we were waiting for the helicopter, the father was very interested in verifying that we were sending him to a military hospital, and not a civilian hospital (he was going to one of our military level 3's). He said (through a translator) that if we sent him to a civilian hospital in the wrong area of the country, "they will kill me and chop the head off my son". He is referring to the Sunni - Shiite issues out here. How accurate he was I can not attest to, but I can tell you that he believed it.