Corpsman up! So Marines may live

Corpsman up! So Marines may live

100th Air Refueling Wing Public Affairs
Story by Tech. Sgt. Kevin Wallace
RAF MILDENHALL, England -- "Corpsman up!" rang out like a shotgun in his ears.

The 7-ton truck he was riding in just crashed back down after being thrown 5 feet into the air after hitting an improvised explosive device while on convoy in eastern Afghanistan.

The smoke and dirt hadn't yet settled, and former Petty Officer 2nd Class Shawn 'Doc' Dickens strained all his senses - desperately trying to find the 11 Marines and Soldier who accompanied him on the convoy.

"Hearing Marines scream 'corpsman up,' is the last thing a corpsman wants to hear because that means a Marine is hurt," said Marine Sgt. Dickens, who left the Navy to pursue a career in the Marine Corps after that Afghan deployment. "As I went from Marine to Marine and assessed the damage, I blanked out.

"It's not like I didn't know what to do, but more like I treated everyone - but don't really remember doing it," continued the former corpsman. "I can remember before, and have memory once everyone was fixed, but the center is kind of fuzzy."

Of the 13 men on the convoy, Dickens was the only one not injured. Sitting next to the spare tire in the truck saved his life. He remembers seeing the tire later and it was literally riddled with shrapnel, he said.

After the attack, Dickens triaged, then treated each and every fellow serviceman on that Afghan roadside, and can still recall the most-severely wounded Marine:

"Cpl. Aaron Grossman had taken shrapnel through the backs of his legs," recalled the former corpsman. "A large piece literally tore out his calf muscle, while another hit near a major artery. Had I not removed it, it could have shifted and would have cut his artery. He'd have bled out in a matter of minutes."

After saving the team members' lives, four were medically evacuated out of Afghanistan, treated at a stateside hospital, and except one, all eventually returned to their deployed unit.

Dickens didn't see Grossman again until he returned home. But, what happened during post-deployment defines what Sergeant Dickens considers the most rewarding part of his job as a corpsman.

At their barracks on Camp Lejeune, N.C., while moving as fast as his crutches would allow, Grossman scurried up to Dickens' mom, gave her a big hug and said, "Thank you for having the son you have. If he had not been there for me when I got hit, I probably wouldn't be able to hug my own mom anymore."
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