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Triage Training Helped To Save Lives At Ft. Hood

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Nov 6, 2009 8:29 pm US/Eastern

Triage Training Helped To Save Lives At Ft. Hood

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) ― The U.S. Military says because of the expert training of its medical staff, soldiers were able to save a lot more lives in Fort Hood.

Up to 50 doctors and nurses sprang into action, breaking tables to use for stretchers and even using their clothes as bandages.

Dr. Sheri Mancini is a surgeon at Allegheny General Hospital. She spent months treating the wounded as a U.S. Naval surgeon at the start of the war in Iraq under makeshift conditions.

"No. 1, reassurance – you reassure your fellow comrade when they've been injured," she said. "No. 2, your bare hands – you apply pressure to any bleeding sites. And then I think I did read about something – I wasn't surprised about people taking the shirts off of their backs and using them as tourniquets. Absolutely, they would have been trained to do that."

James Sabo, a Pittsburgh EMS crew chief, also deployed to Iraq as a Marine. He says few people would have been more prepared to handle the shootings at Fort Hood than the soldiers at the readiness center who became first responders.

"The thing about the military is you use what you have on you," he said. "Most of the time you don't have a medical kit on you or whatever – you just use what's around you. I mean if that means your uniform – you rip off a piece of your uniform, use whatever's around you to stop the bleeding or whatever you have – just to improvise."

"If it had to happen somewhere, that's probably one of the better places for it to happen," Sabo added.

(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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