Hello

[Racheal Santos]

Hello, my name is Racheal I am a prior service aeromedical evacuation technician(flight medic). Not the heli kind but more of the fixed wing variety. I don't really understand why I feel the way that I do, or more likely don't feel that I have the right to feel anything. I guess thats the hard thing about being on the medical side, I have never been in combat and though I have seen some really rough stuff it wasn't happening to me so I don't get why it is still affecting me. I carry around a lot of guilt, and I constantly tell myself I should still be flying. I see news stories about injured guys, and I think I should be there. I got out about two years ago, had a baby, married an officer in the marine corps, but I keep pushing him away. I am flirting with the notion of going to the va and talking to someone but at the same time I feel like I am strong, should be strong, should be able to pull myself out of this. It sucks. A huge part of me says just go back in as a reserve component and then everything will be better, kind of like coming home but I don't know what the answer is. Any help would be appreciated, or maybe just to be able to have a good conversation with people who understand.

 

[JarHed]

Hey Racheal

Welcome to the Forums. Glad you found us.

From what you've described, you have some of the 'classic' symtoms of PTSD. You've already made a great start by realizing that you have a problem and want to do something about it. The VA has many programs to help vets with PTSD. There are also alot of knowledgeable people here to ask questions and give support. So, what ever your questions are, ask away. I'm only the first of many to welcome you to our group.

JarHed

 

[Zipperhead]

Morning Racheal.

 

[Squirt]

Hello Rachel, always remember that you dont have to do this alone. Plenty of people here with open ears.

 

[Racheal Santos]

Thanks for the warm welcome, I am trying to come to terms with it but I still feel kind of ridiculous. I enrolled with the VA so at least taking some steps towards figuring this all out. I am pretty outstanding at avoidance, I think I could major in it if it was an offered college degree. I was deployed but its different when you are aeromed its not like I was ever in any danger, or had my life threatened. Which is why I feel so ridiculous, and kind of ashamed for having any problems at all. I don't really understand myself, and I don't remember what my normal felt like before all of this. I have a hard time focusing, commiting to any one thing or the other, but I have noticed that whenever I am in a high adrenaline situation I feel great, totally focused, and like myself again but when I am in normal day to day life I feel lost. I don't know I guess that is the best thing I can say I just don't know.

 

[Sarg]

Welcome, Racheal, I have worked med flights myself and understand what you have been exposed to. Exposure to tramatic event, especially repetitiously, can bring on PTSD just as easily as being shot at. Nothing to feel uneasy about.

Taking that first step towards getting help is the most difficult, but once made, puts you on the road to feeling better.

We're here if you need us.

Sarg

 

[JarHed]

Hey Racheal

Glad you've gotten with the VA, there's good help there. You've gotta' be persistent this them, so hang in there. I got wounded in Nam and flew back from DaNang to Tokio then to Washington via the great circle route. The in flight MedTechs and Nurses made an extremely long flight easy for us. You had a tough job, don't let anyone tell you different.The people that took care of us wounded are the best. I think you've got the toughest job around.

Things like avoidance and feeling more like yourself in a 'high adrenaline situation' are both things that are linked to PTSD. Just take it one step at a time and you'll get there. Be nice to yourself, you deserve it.

Jar

 

[Jimmy1]

Welcome to the forum Rach, hope we can help. Seeing the aftermath is what is burnt0 in a lot peoples minds

 

[tho9900]

R... I was gonna reply last night but been going through this whole anger thing the last few days long story and you will hear about it soon...

ok imma be honest.. former combat medic (corpsman) USN deployed with the Marines twice spent serious time on a chopper Medevac to you guys the first go round...

man the stuff we saw... the aftermath never feel "ridiculous" or such for what you saw and did.. I only saw one or two on the spot casualties as in right before me.. spent a hella time in the air tho running them out..some hairy evacs..

honest???? my cousin was a door gunner on a chopper in vietnam... he told me stories abt his time in the air esp running medvac... Jarhead and the others agree... we are the reason the ones we got out survived... I brought em to yall AF peeps... yall got em to the care they needed...

you were part of the chain... u might not have been up close and personal or maybe were... in a sense we were moreso up close becuase of what we did...

I did rotary wing... bringing to you fixed wing peeps.... I trusted yall to hook em up... sometimes we did sometimes we didnt.. but hell we all share a lotta guilt us medics... it was hard to hand em over to yall to be honest.... no offense that was my bro on that gurney.... and hearing you talk makes me feel better... yall cared as much as us...

honest? you are new here but what you just said made a lot of sense... to me.. and ya... sometimes yall had some wierd rules and it was always wierd to hand off care to yall.. but you just gave me faith that the care followed through...

Thanks.. :) Sis.. (wow I have never said that if u prefer bro its cool)

And ya... there's a lotta medics here male and female so a lot of us feel it...

 

[JarHed]

Nice post Tho

As a grunt I can't tell you how important it was to know that we had a corpsman with us on patrol. It made the difference between life and death.

When I got wounded the second time it was really bad. But I remember that I always felt secure in the hands of the many people that took care of me. Some I only saw for a short time and others for much longer. Every one that I encountered treated me as if I was the only person they had to deal with, like I was special. The truth is that ya'll did that for everybody. It's all the people in that chain that gets a wounded grunt to where he, or she, needs to be that are truly special.

There's no way that you can look at the face of death every day, as ya'll did, and did it with caring and grace and not be affected by it.

All the people that do that and did that have my greatest respect and admiration.

Semper Fi

JarHed

 

[Racheal Santos]

I can't tell all of you how much it means to me to be able to talk to people who know what I have done and what I have seen. Being a medic is different in itself, but you don't find to many people who know anything about aeromed. I can tell my family what I saw and what I experienced but you can't explain feeling or emotion. I remember doing a mission on christmas eve, we where flying over the US with all of these guys who where just beat to shit and I could not wrap my mind around the vast difference between what was happening
30,000 feet up and on the ground. I mean the whole country was celebrating which is fine, should be fine, but no one knew that right above them we where flying. Its just so surreal, and that is the kind of stuff that no one gets, the kind of stuff I can't explain. Tho I can put your mind at ease about one thing, I loved my patients with everything I had. I would have given anything for them, and was always so frustrated that I couldn't make it better. I had a little toaster oven and I used to make cookies before every mission, I could only make like five at a time and sometimes we had patient loads of up to 70 or more but I was going to make those freakin cookies if it was the last thing I did. I don't mind being called little sis I kinda like it.

 

[tho9900]

Thanks R... I posted this in another thread... sometimes it was like I was visualizing things third person, like watching a surgery from the observation room... it wasn't till we were aways out that things started coming back to first person... I remember sometimes becoming acutely aware that because of the position I was in my leg had gone numb, I was oblivious until I knew the patient was gonna tolerate the transport... If the patient was stable.. looking out at the ocean (literally it is tidy bowl blue that far out in the med.. will post a pic) and feeling a strange serenity, and sometimes wondering if I could ever explain what I saw and felt and did in my job when I got back... I decided less was better... and sometimes saying nothing at all worked best..

And I know yall did give 200%... but I know were the situation opposite, and I was on the tarmac ready to move the gurney to my jet... you would be standing beside the chopper wondering in the back of your head was I going to treat the pt with as much care as you had done on that long trip in on the chopper... and no.. no offense.. just the nature of the job. :)

Where did you fly out of? I usually flew em into Sigonella Italy for the ones needing more care then the amphib team docs could provide... ship hopping or refueling if we were on a CH-53, where we met a 707 AF Medevac jet.. we usually accompanied the patient(s) to wherever we were going (most often Wiesbaden) then flew back...

So nice to meet ya.. hoping some of the other medics get on soon... we have at least one female medic here so I am sure you will have some understanding there as well...

Glad you are on board sis.. and ya... glad there is another medic here for sure....