thedrifter
08-17-06, 07:46 AM
New center will treat war amputees
By: WILLIAM FINN BENNETT - Staff Writer
SAN DIEGO ---- Dressed in combat fatigues and standing in the morning sun with his wife, Leslie, at his side, Marine Cpl. Nicholas Beberniss certainly didn't look like a man who had been seriously wounded in the Iraq war
But looks can be deceiving.
Beberniss is completing two full years of intensive treatment and therapy at Naval Medical Center San Diego's Combat Casualty Center after his vehicle ran over a large anti-tank mine in the dangerous Anbar province of Iraq in 2004, Beberniss said. The blast threw him 180 feet, broke both of his legs, his back and his pelvis. It shattered his rib cage and punctured a lung.
The six-year Marine Corps veteran was one of the first of about 200 seriously wounded men and women to be treated at the center over the last couple of years. The center is the only one of its kind in the western United States, according to hospital officials.
"I was the guinea pig for everybody and I'm proud of it," he said.
The combat casualty center is a work in progress; U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer toured the facility Wednesday to get a look at its next phase, one that will provide a full range of treatment and therapy for amputees and those who have suffered serious head trauma.
At a midday news conference on the footsteps of the hospital, the California Democrat lauded the work of hospital officials and spoke of how much the combat casualty center will mean to patients and their families.
Boxer, who worked with Sens. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, and Ted Stevens, R-Alaska to obtain about $7 million for upgrades to the facility, said that 25 percent of all American casualties in Iraq are men and women who are stationed or live on the West Coast.
Currently, amputees and other seriously wounded patients must be treated at East Coast military hospitals, including Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington or the National Naval Medical Center in Maryland.
Because treatment of serious wounds and amputations can take a year or longer, the lack of a West Coast treatment center has created tremendous hardship for West Coast patients and their families, who frequently have to travel back and forth to visit their loved ones, Boxer said. The operation and expansion of the San Diego facility will provide some measure of relief to those families, she added.
"It makes no sense to continue business as usual," she said. "We owe our service members so much more than gratitude ---- we owe them every comfort, every opportunity to get their lives back."
When a hospital official said he expected the remodeling and upgrades to begin in October and be completed by the spring, Boxer said she plans to talk to each of the contractors herself in an effort to speed up the work.
"They have to get this done on time or ahead of schedule," Boxer said. "There are lives hanging in the balance."
The upgraded facility will be equipped to treat amputees, fit them with artificial limbs and give them high-tech assistance in adapting to the prosthetic devices.
Navy Capt. David Tam, a hospital official, said that one device developed to help patients master their gait with prosthetic legs was inspired by the science-fiction movie "The Matrix."
The center will be able to handle up to 1,000 patients, Tam said. It will have a wide range of physical therapy and rehabilitation programs and include an outdoor workout area for amputees with features such as stairs, a climbing wall, a climbing boulder and different types of terrain and walking surfaces, Tam said.
Beberniss, a Colorado native who is completing his treatment, said he wants to stay in the Marine Corps, adding that he can't wait to get back to Iraq.
"If I get out, they win," he said. "If I stay in and push every day, I win. Now, it's personal."
-- Contact staff writer William Finn Bennett at (760) 740-5426 or wbennett@nctimes.com.
Ellie
By: WILLIAM FINN BENNETT - Staff Writer
SAN DIEGO ---- Dressed in combat fatigues and standing in the morning sun with his wife, Leslie, at his side, Marine Cpl. Nicholas Beberniss certainly didn't look like a man who had been seriously wounded in the Iraq war
But looks can be deceiving.
Beberniss is completing two full years of intensive treatment and therapy at Naval Medical Center San Diego's Combat Casualty Center after his vehicle ran over a large anti-tank mine in the dangerous Anbar province of Iraq in 2004, Beberniss said. The blast threw him 180 feet, broke both of his legs, his back and his pelvis. It shattered his rib cage and punctured a lung.
The six-year Marine Corps veteran was one of the first of about 200 seriously wounded men and women to be treated at the center over the last couple of years. The center is the only one of its kind in the western United States, according to hospital officials.
"I was the guinea pig for everybody and I'm proud of it," he said.
The combat casualty center is a work in progress; U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer toured the facility Wednesday to get a look at its next phase, one that will provide a full range of treatment and therapy for amputees and those who have suffered serious head trauma.
At a midday news conference on the footsteps of the hospital, the California Democrat lauded the work of hospital officials and spoke of how much the combat casualty center will mean to patients and their families.
Boxer, who worked with Sens. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, and Ted Stevens, R-Alaska to obtain about $7 million for upgrades to the facility, said that 25 percent of all American casualties in Iraq are men and women who are stationed or live on the West Coast.
Currently, amputees and other seriously wounded patients must be treated at East Coast military hospitals, including Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington or the National Naval Medical Center in Maryland.
Because treatment of serious wounds and amputations can take a year or longer, the lack of a West Coast treatment center has created tremendous hardship for West Coast patients and their families, who frequently have to travel back and forth to visit their loved ones, Boxer said. The operation and expansion of the San Diego facility will provide some measure of relief to those families, she added.
"It makes no sense to continue business as usual," she said. "We owe our service members so much more than gratitude ---- we owe them every comfort, every opportunity to get their lives back."
When a hospital official said he expected the remodeling and upgrades to begin in October and be completed by the spring, Boxer said she plans to talk to each of the contractors herself in an effort to speed up the work.
"They have to get this done on time or ahead of schedule," Boxer said. "There are lives hanging in the balance."
The upgraded facility will be equipped to treat amputees, fit them with artificial limbs and give them high-tech assistance in adapting to the prosthetic devices.
Navy Capt. David Tam, a hospital official, said that one device developed to help patients master their gait with prosthetic legs was inspired by the science-fiction movie "The Matrix."
The center will be able to handle up to 1,000 patients, Tam said. It will have a wide range of physical therapy and rehabilitation programs and include an outdoor workout area for amputees with features such as stairs, a climbing wall, a climbing boulder and different types of terrain and walking surfaces, Tam said.
Beberniss, a Colorado native who is completing his treatment, said he wants to stay in the Marine Corps, adding that he can't wait to get back to Iraq.
"If I get out, they win," he said. "If I stay in and push every day, I win. Now, it's personal."
-- Contact staff writer William Finn Bennett at (760) 740-5426 or wbennett@nctimes.com.
Ellie