Iraq's Burn Unit Working Miracles at military base

Iraq's Burn Unit Working Miracles
Tough Volunteers At Military Base Have Helped Heal At Least 1,000 Iraqi Children

SCANIA BASE, Iraq, July 31, 2008
(CBS) Sgt. Joe Barzeski is the closest thing in Central Iraq to a miracle worker.

And 11-year-old Ali is going to need a miracle to get over burns from a kerosene stove.

When starting the treatment, Barzeski said: "It has to come off so that the medicine will work. Plus this will get all crusty - and scab up and that will be an ugly scar."

The soldiers turn up the radio to drown out the crying, CBS News correspondent Elizabeth Palmer reports. Conditions are primitive. But even so, the burn unit is filled to capacity.

It's tucked away on a U.S. base that's known as the biggest gas station in Iraq. It's where military convoys refuel.

While on the far side, Iraqi families - as many as 80 a day - wait patiently to be admitted to a clinic that's more MASH unit than E.R.

Barzeski had no medical training before he joined the Army - so he's been learning on the job.
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