Interesting story here on an advanced prosthetic arm--for two reasons. The first, is that it sounds like a real medical breakthrough.
Secondly, it reaffirms something I was recently told by a friend of mine who works for the VA. We were talking about the plight of service-members wounded in our ongoing wars and our obligation to help them. He then asked me if I knew how many "amputees" there were from Iraq and Afghanistan. I did some quick math, how many probably served, injury rates, news coverage, a sense of the situation.....and guessed 5000. Here's the answer, the same one he gave me:
"About 22 percent of the 820 American troops injured in Iraq or Afghanistan who have suffered major amputation have lost arms, while the comparable figure in Vietnam was only about 4 percent, according to Downs."
So, after almost eight years of this stuff, nearly constant combat, and more importantly, nearly constant news coverage of the rigors facing returned injured service members---THERE ARE ONLY 820 AMPUTEES! I'm glad of it, a true testament to the efforts of battlefield medics...but did any of you think the number was this low? I'm wondering if press coverage contributed a wee bit to my perception....
I had to read your post a few times because I though I read it wrong. My guess may have been a lot higher than yours.
ReplyDeleteI thought I read it wrong too.
ReplyDeleteWhile the number is low, the percentage is higher I think because more lives are being save on the battlefield? Or is that incorrect?
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure about lives/percentages--I guess I was only reacting the the cold hard number---which was MUCH lower than I thought it would be, given how long we've been fighting, how many people have seen combat and most importantly, the coverage this issue has gotten...
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