Angels in extraordinary circumstances

For seven weeks medics from the Kings Heah Field Hospital have been saving lives and limbs at Camp Bastion - the British military base in Helmand Province, Afghanistan.

What makes these men and women so extraordinary is that they are Terrirotial Army reservists, sent out from civvy street.
Normally you would find these hard working, passionate and warm-hearted people working in the NHS.
They are the people who would deliver your baby, operate on you in A&E and nurse you back to health again.

But here in the middle of the desert in Southern Afghanistan, they deal with the most severe trauma patients any doctor or nurse could ever encounter.

They say every week working at the hospital in Camp Bastion is the equivalent of a year at a civilian hospital. That is the scale of the task that faces them.

Spending a week embedded with these Midlanders is humbling. Military patients here tell me they have nothing but their utmost respect for them.

I stood and waited at the front of the hospital with them after we were told that casualties were being flown in from the battlefield.
Amazingly, the hospital is kept up to date with all military movements in the province that may result in an injury.
A complex computer system tickers updates on a widescreen television, with red words indicating an injured soldier.
This time the injuries were only fairly minor but there is always the fear that the worst news is just around the corner.

One patient I saw walked into the Emergency Department from the back of an ambulance, chatting and smiling, but obviously in pain.
I heard doctors muttering something about how lucky he was as they evaluated his injuries and assessed what was to be done with him next.
It was only later, when I bumped into him on the ward, that I found out just how lucky he was.

An insurgent had shot him in the arm but, amazingly, the bullet had passed between all the bones in his shoulder and flown out the other side.
Not only had this patient survived (the bullet only missed his head by a matter of a couple of centimetres) but his injuries were so minor that he did not need surgery.

Medics here have just passed "the hump" this week - they are now more than half way through their three month tour.
I asked Major Kathryn Rickers if she was missing home.
She told me that of course she was but if I offered her a flight home tomorrow she wouldn't take it.
"None of us would," she said.
"We are here for a reason and we want to play our part.
"And we actually quite like it here too."