DIYALA – An Army medic with 3rd Stryker BCT, 2nd ID saved the life of a young Iraqi boy after the child received several gunshot wounds from an unknown assailant, Sept. 20. Spc. Adam O'Krent, Co A, 1st Bn, 23rd Inf Regt, 3/2 SBCT, provided the care which saved the young child's life.
O'Krent's unit was patrolling near the village of Biwaniyah, north of the Diyala provincial capitol of Baqubah, when they received small arms fire, striking between their Stryker vehicles and ricocheting off a nearby wall, said 2nd Lt. Terrence Nolan, O'Krent's Plt leader. Since there was no positive ID of a shooter, the Soldiers did not return fire in accordance with standard operating procedures, he added.
O'Krent said he knew the situation was serious when his squad leader, Staff Sgt. David Hill, called for him. "I knew as soon as the ramp dropped and he called for me something had happened. When he told me to bring my bag, definitely something had happened," said O'Krent, recalling his first moments out of the vehicle before reaching the child. He said when he reached the boy, he was laying face down with some bleeding underneath him but no wounds in his back. "When I rolled him over I saw that he was shot in the chest, and later I found he was shot in the pelvis," he said.
After the initial check of the boy's wounds, O'Krent's training kicked in and he went to work to save the boys life. "You're not thinking about anything at that point. It's instinctual at that point; you know what to do." O'Krent said. Once O'Krent stabilized the boy, the Soldiers loaded him into one of the Stryker vehicles. As they were loading the boy, his father arrived on the scene and was hurried into the vehicle with his son. "From the time the shots went off, to the time we evacuated him, it couldn't have been more than 10 minutes," said Nolan.
The Soldiers transported the wounded boy and his worried father to the FOB Warhorse medical center, and from there the patient was flown to JBBalad.
