After stepping on land mine in Kosovo,
soldier stayed calm, treated his wound
Story and photos by David
Josar, Kosovo bureau
Sgt. Richard P. Casini
rests Wednesday at the Camp Bondsteel Hospital. |
CAMP BONDSTEEL, Kosovo — POW! Sgt. Richard P. Casini knew instantly what had
happened. His right foot had triggered a landmine on a routine two-man patrol about 3½
miles north of the Macedonia border on Monday.
The pain: This was like nothing the 22-year-old had ever felt before.
"I looked down and saw flesh and blood. I didn’t want to look again,"
Casini, who joined the Army three years ago to earn money for college, recalled Wednesday.
The calm: Casini responded almost methodically to the blast. He unclipped his first-aid
kit and tried to form a tourniquet. His boot was in tatters. He removed his belt and
wrapped it around the bottom of his leg, just above his ankle, and then grabbed a stick to
twist the belt tighter and tighter.
By the time 50th Medical Co. flight medic Sgt. Christine Roberts arrived, Casini had
smoked two Newport cigarettes to calm himself.
"I was amazed at what I saw," said Roberts, a flight medic for just about
four months, who made the tricky rescue. "They say your patient can be your
nightmare, screaming, difficult — he was perfectly calm."
Officers at Camp Bondsteel say Casini and his radio transmitter operator, Pfc. Joshua
Beavers, members of the 1st Cavalry Brigade Reconnaissance Troop, showed remarkable cool
through a horrific experience.
"It shows what the proper training can do," Task Force Falcon spokesman Maj.
Norman Johnson said. "They didn’t fall apart. They had been trained to deal with
these issues, and they dealt with it."
From his hospital bed Wednesday, Casini remained upbeat, the bandaged-stump at the
bottom of his right leg occasionally peeking from under his bed sheets.
"I think we all think about what can happen here, but we don’t think it can
happen," said Casini, who arrived in Kosovo about 40 days ago excited to put into
practical use what he had been trained to do. "You don’t think about a car
accident or a plane crash. You don’t think anything can happen to you. But it
can."
After the land mine exploded, Casini said, Beavers radioed for help. As Beavers
reassured Casini he would be OK and joked that maybe now the Army would pay for his
college education, Roberts, aboard a UH-61 helicopter that included two pilots, a crew
chief and an observer, raced to the scene.
The rescue helicopter reached the location in about 10 minutes, but couldn’t find
Casini and Beavers.
"The trees were thick," said Roberts, who eventually was lowered by a cable
200 feet onto the steep hill where Casini was injured. And as Roberts searched for Casini,
she had to be careful not to set off any more unexploded mines.
"There were a lot of challenges," she said.
On the ground, Casini and Beavers heard the whirl of the blades but still couldn’t
see the helicopter.
"We were just trying to stay calm," said Casini, who has two younger brothers
and grew up in Follansbee, W. Va.
Roberts knew time was a factor, because the longer it took her to reach the injured
soldier meant the more time he would be losing blood.
50th Medical Company
flight medic
Sgt. Christine Roberts demonstrates how she helped Sgt. Richard P. Casini get into the
"jungle penetrator" so he could be taken by helicopter to the hospital at Camp
Bondsteel. |
After searching for about 20 minutes, the crew aboard the UH-61 saw the purple plumes
smoke from the grenade Beavers had popped.
But the rescue still wasn’t over.
Roberts was lowered carrying more than 100 pounds of gear that included a collapsible
stretcher, medical supplies and her weapon. Initially, Beavers didn’t know she
landed, so the flight medic had to slowly poke a small stick into the ground, searching
for mines as she moved toward the two soldiers.
When Roberts saw Casini she was alarmed. The ground around him had been soaked red with
blood, but she was impressed at how well he had already treated his own wound.
She decided to tighten the tourniquet some more. She used her knife to cut
Casini’s shirt into dressings for his damaged leg. He screamed in pain as she
adjusted the homemade bandages and applied more pressure. "He wasn’t in shock
yet, but his face was gray and white, and I knew he was close," she said.
The next step was to get Casini onto the "jungle penetrator," a rescue device
developed in Vietnam that looks like a large pendulum with straps, so he could be winched
into the helicopter.
For a moment, Casini told the medic he couldn’t make the 20-foot walk to the
jungle penetrator, that he was in too much pain, Roberts recalled. "I yelled at him:
‘You got one good leg you can use. If you have a good leg, use it.’"
Because Kosovo is not considered a war zone, Roberts was not able to administer any
pain medication.
A minute later, Casini, who had recovered ammunition and stopped suspected ethnic
Albanian extremists on previous patrols, was in the helicopter, then Beavers and then
Casini.
"I was very impressed when I found out he had treated himself," she said.
"He was in pain. He had stepped on a mine. He did a good job."
About 90 minutes after stepping onto the mine, Casini was at the hospital, where
medical personnel told him what he expected to hear: He had lost his foot.
As Casini rested Wednesday on a bed at the Bondsteel hospital, a pizza box was on the
table next to him, and on his blue hospital gown were pinned the Kosovo Campaign and NATO
medals. He should receive his Purple Heart as soon as the paperwork is completed before he
leaves for Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany for additional surgery.
He has no regrets. He has no anger. He has been told that his type of injury coupled
with modern prosthetics will allow him to continue in the U.S. Army.
While on the phone with his family Monday, he tried to reassure his mother, a
registered nurse, that he was going to be fine. "But I still didn’t want her to
get upset. That’s the hard part," he said.
On Thursday, Casini is to be flown to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany.
Later, he will be flown to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Bethesda, Md.
"I just want American people to know that what I’m doing here is fighting for
peace for people and it is dangerous," he said. "But I also want people to know
that although this is in Kosovo, what we’re doing is for America and it is for
American freedom and peace, too."
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