Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
New York Times
February 25, 2007
Pg. 16
By C. J. Chivers
Petty Officer Third Class Dustin E. Kirby, a Navy corpsman whose efforts to save a wounded marine in Iraq and his own wounding by a sniper on Christmas were covered by The New York Times, has returned home to Georgia and expects a nearly full recovery, he and his family said.
He returned escorted by a police honor guard early this month, after his discharge from the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., and four operations during five weeks of care.
Petty Officer Kirby, 23, was struck by a bullet in the left side of the face while near a bunker on the roof of Outpost Omar, a Marine position in Karma, a city in Anbar Province.
His injury mixed the worst of luck with an uncanny stroke of good fortune.
The bullet, which he said was an armor-piercing 7.62 millimeter round fired from a Dragunov-style sniper rifle at a range of 400 to 600 yards, passed through his head and exited at the side of his mouth. In traveling this path, it did not strike his brain, spinal column or major veins or arteries, he said.
Immediately after the bullet’s impact, Petty Officer Kirby remained conscious and could walk. He communicated by writing notes. But his condition deteriorated, he and officers in his battalion said, from blood loss and trauma to the roof of his mouth and the base of his skull.
Although officers in the unit to which he was assigned, Second Battalion, Eighth Marines, initially thought he had lost his ability to speak, since undergoing the operations he has recovered a voice that is only slightly slurred.
“I’m doing a lot better than most people would expect,” he said by telephone from Hiram, Ga.
Petty Officer Kirby had been assigned as a trauma medic to the battalion’s weapons company. In early November he was the subject of an article that described his work and prayers to save the life of his friend, Lance Cpl. Colin Smith, a machine gunner in the vehicle’s turret who was shot through the skull by a sniper in Karma in late October.
Lance Corporal Smith, 19, survived, and is undergoing treatment and full days of intensive therapy at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Minneapolis. His father, Bob Smith, said by telephone that while his prognosis is unclear he has made significant progress.
The bullet, the same type that struck Petty Officer Kirby, destroyed the top regions of both frontal lobes of Lance Corporal Smith’s brain. But since being medically stabilized and beginning a range of therapies, he has begun to walk with assistance and a four-pronged cane, to smile and to mimic sounds and repeat words he hears, his father said.
Mr. Smith also said his son recognized relatives and was in very good spirits, often laughing, acting playfully and twinkling his eyes.
“The essence of him is there,” Mr. Smith said. “It is not always easy for him to communicate, but it is there.”
Because of damage to areas of the brain that control speech, Mr. Smith said, it was not clear how fully Lance Corporal Smith would recover his ability to converse. Similarly, he has extremely limited movement on the right side of his body. It is too soon to predict how much range of motion and strength would return.
“You never know when the healing process will plateau,” Mr. Smith said, but added, “Every day you can see him improve.”
Petty Officer Kirby’s therapy and treatment are less extensive. The bullet tore away seven teeth, the right side of his lower jaw, several patches of nerve and a section of his tongue. It also shattered part of his lower skull, near the roof of his mouth.
Surgeons have rebuilt his face with bone and skin from one of his legs, he said, and secured the damaged tissues with 14 metal plates.
“The plates are just kind of holding everything together and allowing it to grow back to what it was,” he said.
He said he expects to have three or four more operations in the next six months, and will require therapy to recover his speech in full.
His mother, Gail Kirby, said that his prognosis is good, and that his attitude is, too.
“At his first meeting with the local speech therapist, he walked in and said, ‘Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,’ ” she said, using the word made famous by Julie Andrews in “Mary Poppins.” “Then he said, ‘There. Can I go now?’ ”
Petty Officer Kirby said he intended to return to active duty when his doctors allow, and hoped to become an instructor at a military school, training other corpsmen in combat medical duties.
As the two men have continued to convalesce, their battalion completed its tour in Iraq and moved out of the country through Kuwait. Its last members returned to its home base, Camp Lejeune, N.C., on Feb. 21. Petty Officer Kirby said he hoped to rejoin them.
Mr. Smith, Lance Corporal Smith’s father, said his son’s platoon sergeant was planning to visit him in March.
In Hiram, Petty Officer Kirby’s mother said that for now she was simply grateful he was home.
For months, she said, she barely slept, and constantly checked e-mail messages, news reports from Iraq and Web sites that track American casualties in Iraq.
“Now I can just walk into the room,” she said, “and see him.”
February 25, 2007
Pg. 16
By C. J. Chivers
Petty Officer Third Class Dustin E. Kirby, a Navy corpsman whose efforts to save a wounded marine in Iraq and his own wounding by a sniper on Christmas were covered by The New York Times, has returned home to Georgia and expects a nearly full recovery, he and his family said.
He returned escorted by a police honor guard early this month, after his discharge from the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., and four operations during five weeks of care.
Petty Officer Kirby, 23, was struck by a bullet in the left side of the face while near a bunker on the roof of Outpost Omar, a Marine position in Karma, a city in Anbar Province.
His injury mixed the worst of luck with an uncanny stroke of good fortune.
The bullet, which he said was an armor-piercing 7.62 millimeter round fired from a Dragunov-style sniper rifle at a range of 400 to 600 yards, passed through his head and exited at the side of his mouth. In traveling this path, it did not strike his brain, spinal column or major veins or arteries, he said.
Immediately after the bullet’s impact, Petty Officer Kirby remained conscious and could walk. He communicated by writing notes. But his condition deteriorated, he and officers in his battalion said, from blood loss and trauma to the roof of his mouth and the base of his skull.
Although officers in the unit to which he was assigned, Second Battalion, Eighth Marines, initially thought he had lost his ability to speak, since undergoing the operations he has recovered a voice that is only slightly slurred.
“I’m doing a lot better than most people would expect,” he said by telephone from Hiram, Ga.
Petty Officer Kirby had been assigned as a trauma medic to the battalion’s weapons company. In early November he was the subject of an article that described his work and prayers to save the life of his friend, Lance Cpl. Colin Smith, a machine gunner in the vehicle’s turret who was shot through the skull by a sniper in Karma in late October.
Lance Corporal Smith, 19, survived, and is undergoing treatment and full days of intensive therapy at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Minneapolis. His father, Bob Smith, said by telephone that while his prognosis is unclear he has made significant progress.
The bullet, the same type that struck Petty Officer Kirby, destroyed the top regions of both frontal lobes of Lance Corporal Smith’s brain. But since being medically stabilized and beginning a range of therapies, he has begun to walk with assistance and a four-pronged cane, to smile and to mimic sounds and repeat words he hears, his father said.
Mr. Smith also said his son recognized relatives and was in very good spirits, often laughing, acting playfully and twinkling his eyes.
“The essence of him is there,” Mr. Smith said. “It is not always easy for him to communicate, but it is there.”
Because of damage to areas of the brain that control speech, Mr. Smith said, it was not clear how fully Lance Corporal Smith would recover his ability to converse. Similarly, he has extremely limited movement on the right side of his body. It is too soon to predict how much range of motion and strength would return.
“You never know when the healing process will plateau,” Mr. Smith said, but added, “Every day you can see him improve.”
Petty Officer Kirby’s therapy and treatment are less extensive. The bullet tore away seven teeth, the right side of his lower jaw, several patches of nerve and a section of his tongue. It also shattered part of his lower skull, near the roof of his mouth.
Surgeons have rebuilt his face with bone and skin from one of his legs, he said, and secured the damaged tissues with 14 metal plates.
“The plates are just kind of holding everything together and allowing it to grow back to what it was,” he said.
He said he expects to have three or four more operations in the next six months, and will require therapy to recover his speech in full.
His mother, Gail Kirby, said that his prognosis is good, and that his attitude is, too.
“At his first meeting with the local speech therapist, he walked in and said, ‘Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,’ ” she said, using the word made famous by Julie Andrews in “Mary Poppins.” “Then he said, ‘There. Can I go now?’ ”
Petty Officer Kirby said he intended to return to active duty when his doctors allow, and hoped to become an instructor at a military school, training other corpsmen in combat medical duties.
As the two men have continued to convalesce, their battalion completed its tour in Iraq and moved out of the country through Kuwait. Its last members returned to its home base, Camp Lejeune, N.C., on Feb. 21. Petty Officer Kirby said he hoped to rejoin them.
Mr. Smith, Lance Corporal Smith’s father, said his son’s platoon sergeant was planning to visit him in March.
In Hiram, Petty Officer Kirby’s mother said that for now she was simply grateful he was home.
For months, she said, she barely slept, and constantly checked e-mail messages, news reports from Iraq and Web sites that track American casualties in Iraq.
“Now I can just walk into the room,” she said, “and see him.”