Ophthalmic combat injuries in the German Sector of Northern Afghanistan 2003 ‐ 2013

Abstract

AbstractDuring the last decade the German Armed Forces (Bundeswehr) were needed in various missions. Especially in Afghanistan the German Army found their greatest challenge on military medicine. The medical treatment of injured soldiers of all nations, who were on missions, with the highest possible quality, relies to a great extent on the unbroken chain at emergency and trauma therapy from the theater of deployment up to the following medical care and rehabilitation in the homeland. In this talk we will tell the story how to manage the mass of casualities in ophthalmology or how to deal with difficult cases we have seen during our mission. So mostly we have to deal with simple irritations of the cornea by constructions in the camp, but on the other hand blunt trauma by IED (improvised explosive devices) play a key role in case of emergency We report about our experience in Field Hospitals (Role 3) which provide in‐patient and out‐patient specialist medical care. In severe ophtalmic casualities patients were stabilised for direct evacuation back to Germany by StratAIRMedEvac. So we could give you a follow up of the further treatment of patients and casualities who have been evacuated from the area of deployment.