Whisker's Roundup of the Wounded

I normally post these for Whisker on Today in Iraq on Sunday, but today's post was so long that I decided to put it here instead. It's obviously relevant to public health, in this case under the heading of intentional injury. Thanks Whisker, for all you do.

Army Sgt. 1st Class Juanita Wilson is one of 11 women injured in combat so far in the war on terror, having lost her left hand in Iraq on Aug. 21, 2004, when a roadside bomb detonated under her vehicle. She was treated at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., and given a prosthetic limb.

Sgt. Joey Bozik lost his right arm, left leg above the knee, and right leg below the knee when the Humvee he was riding in was struck by a roadside bomb on Oct. 27, 2004.

Pvt. Jacob Brown was a Danville native who suffered a mangled leg, mashed wrist and a damaged spleen.

Lance Cpl. Jeremy Trakimowicz 27, was severely wounded on the left side of his head when a roadside bomb detonated in Fallujah on June 24. He is assigned to the 6th Motor Transport Battalion of Red Bank.

Natasha McKinnon 23, of Ashtabula, was wounded Oct. 4 when the Humvee she was riding in was hit by a roadside bomb in northwestern Iraq, near the Jordan border. The injuries were extensive, and her left leg was amputated just below the knee.


On December of 2004 Sgt. James "Jay" A. Dolph. was trying to open the hatch of a humvee but was standing on the hitch, wearing a 140-pound pack — and he slipped off the hitch. The weight of the pack and the door of the Humvee all came down on his ligament and snapped it. The sound it made was so loud his Army buddies thought he had been shot. Moreover, he passed out immediately because of the pain, and that furthered the assumption that it had been a shot. And even now he's still walking with a cane and doesn't know if he'll ever be able to do without it

Kortney Clemons A former Army medic, Clemons, 26, of Little Rock, Miss., was a couple of weeks from returning home in February 2005 when his patrol came across an overturned vehicle in Baghdad. While trying to transport a wounded soldier into a helicopter, a roadside bomb exploded, killing three other medics and peppering Clemons' legs with shrapnel. Doctors severed Clemons' right leg from the mid-thigh down.

Lance Corporal James Crossan suffered a broken back and other injuries when the roadside bomb blew up his Humvee.

Lt. Col. Timothy Maxwell was a tough son of a gun on his third tour in Iraq who thought nothing could rattle him. Then mortar shrapnel pierced his brain. Surgeons picked the metal and ruptured bits of skull from his brain and transferred him for long-term care to a Veterans Affairs hospital in Richmond, Va.

Sgt. Jonathan Brown had his arm had been shredded by a friendly fire missile during the November 2004 raid on Fallujah.

On Memorial Day, David Gonzalez, an Army specialist, was driving a Humvee that was struck by a remote-controlled improvised explosive device on the main road leading north out of Baghdad, his father said.--suffered a badly broken leg and a damaged colon, his father said. An artillery shell also “took a chunk out of his left buttock,” Michael Gonzalez said, adding his son nearly died from the initial blood loss.

The 22-year-old from Glen Ellyn is in critical condition, recovering at a hospital in Germany. His family says his Humvee was attacked while on routine patrol in Baghdad on Memorial Day. "He turned to the sergeant next to him and said, 'I'm paralyzed,'" said David's father, Mike Gonzalez. Added David's mom, Katherine, "He said he reached down and put his hand on his hip and said he felt blood."

At least two pieces of shrapnel pierced the leg of Army Sgt. Joshua Mattson, a 1994 Swartz Creek High School graduate, when an improvised explosive device was remotely detonated last month. The metal remains in his leg, but he's been released from the hospital and is still in Iraq.


Spec. Maxwell Ramsey lost much of his left leg in March when a shell buried in a road exploded as his Humvee passed.

Master Sergeant Christopher Self got caught in a firefight in Iraq in December-- bullets that tore through both of his legs.

Joey Bozik An Army sergeant with the 118th Military Police Company in Iraq, Bozik was riding in a Humvee October 2004 when it struck the mine. He was severely wounded, losing his right arm, his left leg below the knee and his right leg above the knee.