Back home from Afghanistan

By Tina Comeau

THE VANGUARD

NovaNewsNow.com

When Suzanne Thistle was a student at the Yarmouth high school she didn’t know what she wanted to do with her life, but she knew this: she didn’t want to burden her parents with a big university bill, she wanted to travel and she wanted to gain life experience.

The 30-year-old was recently back home for a few days, fresh from her return from Afghanistan, where she had spent eight months in a health services support unit as part of the Canadian contingent for the joint task force in Afghanistan.

There Thistle was second in command and the medical operational planner for the health services unit. She worked with and helped to coordinate the efforts of approximately 85 soldiers, the majority of whom were med techs and medical officers.

The surroundings she worked in on the Kandahar base she compares to any trauma or emergency hospital you’d find in a big city. “Although it was made of plywood, a rustic type thing, they were able to do very amazing surgeries, comparable to what is seen in Canada, which is amazing considering where we were,” Thistle says. “The 85 persons I worked with, the majority of them were out in the area of operations where the injuries were actually occurring. They would be the ones to provide the initial triage, first-aid emergency, get them packaged up onto a helicopter to be medically evacuated to us in Kandahar…I remained in the camp, I did all of the coordination in the office.”

Aside from being there for the injured, Thistle was also involved in the process whenever there was a casualty. “That was probably one of the greatest responsibilities that we had,” she said, noting the first casualty she had to deal with happened about four days after her arrival in Afghanistan.

Thistle spent 242 days in Afghanistan. Back home her family, including her parents Doug and Elaine, kept in touch with her as best and as frequently as they could. Thistle says email was a great thing, but there is no replacement for holding an actual envelop in your hands that has your name on it.

As for what Thistle will do next, she’s being posted to the Canadian embassy in Washington, D.C. for three years where she will help Canadian military personnel and their families posted in the United States with their medical needs, by ensuring they receive the same medical treatment there that would in Canada.

YOU CAN READ THE FULL STORY IN THE MAY 19 ISSUE OF THE YARMOUTH VANGUARD OR SUBSCRIBE TO OUR ONLINE EDITION OF THE VANGUARD, Click onto:

http://www.novanewsnow.com/statique/ePaper_novanews/

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