Bloody Saturday: Eglin Airman, team help save Soldier

  • Published
  • By Kevin Gaddie
  • Team Eglin Public Affairs
EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. --  The memory of meeting 1st Lt. Nicholas Vogt for the first time will never leave Maj. Raynae Leslie's mind or her heart.

Leslie, the 96th Medical Support Squadron's chief of clinical laboratory services here, was deployed last year to the Role 3 multi-national unit hospital at Kandahar Air Base, Afghanistan, where she served as officer-in-charge of the hospital's apheresis element.

Apheresis is a medical technology through which the blood of a donor is passed through an apparatus to draw out and collect certain components, such as platelets.

On the morning of Nov. 12, 2011, Leslie and her team, Tech. Sgt. Jody Haslip, Staff Sgt. Troy Fred, Staff Sgt. Thomas Sullivan and Senior Airman Ronique Waite, were alerted that four Army Soldiers involved in several improvised explosive device incidents were being medically evacuated to her facility.

Vogt, an Army Ranger, was one of them.

When Leslie and her team reached Vogt to transport him to the hospital, they discovered both of his legs had been amputated near his torso, and he was bleeding heavily through his tourniquets and his chest. Medical personnel were performing chest compressions on him, and he had no heartbeat.

"We rolled him immediately into the trauma bay, knowing he would need a lot of blood," said Leslie, one of the few blood-banking specialists in the Air Force. "I didn't think he was going to make it."

Over the next three days and through four surgeries, Vogt received 404 pints of blood, which replaced his total blood volume 100 times over, according to Leslie. The weight of the blood alone would more than double Vogt's approximate body weight.

The team used red blood cell units, fresh frozen plasma, cryoprecipate units and platelet units supplied from the Department of Defense's blood donor centers in the United States. Also, whole blood was gathered through an on-base emergency blood drive for Vogt's specific blood type.

"He received 280 pints of blood on the first night alone," she said. "My team collected 20 platelet units for Vogt that day, which in my experience is an all-time record, for one donor. That's unheard of. I can't stress enough for eligible donors to donate blood. It does save lives."

On the first day, Leslie's team worked for nearly 17 hours straight to collect and process the needed blood, taking one brief rest period before starting again.

"At 3 a.m., I told my team to go home, get some sleep and report back at 7 a.m.," said the major, who was serving on her second deployment in four years. "I went back to my dorm room, showered and went back. That went on for two more days."

After four days at Kandahar, Vogt was stable enough to be transported to Germany for further treatment, and then to Bethesda Naval Hospital in Bethesda, Md., where he is currently recovering.

Leslie considers herself and her Kandahar team bonded for life.

"They're the best apheresis team I've had the honor to work with," she said. "They knew the meaning of 'don't quit.' It was a total team effort to keep Vogt alive. I'm proud of them."
When Leslie returned home in February, one of the first things she did was visit Vogt at Bethesda. This was the first time she'd seen a 'wounded warrior' she treated overseas, back in the United States.

Although she was unable to talk to Vogt, she met his parents. She was glad to see he was recovering so quickly, and had a supportive family at his side.

"To know how thankful his parents were to still have their son, was worth everything my team did for him," Leslie said. "Once he's out of intensive care, awake and able to talk, I plan to go back and meet him face-to-face."

Experiences like this have convinced Leslie she made the right career choice early on.
 
"I wanted to join the Air Force when I was in high school," said the Indiana native. "The lab field was actually my second choice as a career; air traffic control was my first. I only put two choices down when I went to the recruiter. I got my second choice and have been very happy with it.  I cannot see myself doing anything else.

"I have always been a lab tech since I enlisted, and I have seen over the years the lives we as lab techs help save," the 22-year Air Force veteran continued. "Even though at times it is not a direct hands-on approach, this job nonetheless saves patients."

Though Vogt was unconscious the whole time he was treated in Kandahar and she never conversed with him, Leslie and her team were inspired by his silent determination to survive his horrific ordeal. She held firm to the belief he would pull through.

"I believe in never giving up hope the patient will make it," she said. "If I give up that hope, then I might as well not be working to help save them. If that was my son, or brother, or a family member, I would not give up on them. I will never give up on a patient either."