From the Air Combat Command News Service
DHAHRAN, SAUDI ARABIA -- At about 8 p.m. local time June 25 (1996), LtCol. (Dr.) Douglas Robb, commander of the 347th Aerospace Medical Squadron at Moody AFB, and two fellow medical personnel swung by the Khobar Towers apartment complex in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia to pick up some friends for dinner.
At approximately 9:48 p.m., the same apartment buildings would be devastated by a terrorist bomb that killed 19 airmen and wounded hundreds more.
Not long after that, the responsibility of treating all those casualties would fall squarely on Robb's shoulders.
Robb arrived in Dhahran June 12 to fill in as the base's interim medical group commander for a month. He had no way of realizing that before two weeks had passed, he would have to react to an emergency larger than any he had ever been involved with before.
"I had been in country for about 12 days when the bombing happened," said Robb. "I came over here with the intent to be prepared for any contingency. When I first got here, I asked the people I'd be working with to go through the emergency checklist for any possible situation, from a plane crash to a terrorist attack like this. I'm not sure what made me think of that, but I'm sure glad we did."
Robb and his friends were shopping when the fuel truck used by the still-unidentified terrorists exploded near the Khobar Towers. "We had just walked into a carpet shop about a mile- and-a-half from the bombing site. We heard a very, very loud explosion. The building was shaking. There was glass falling all around us," said Robb. "At first, we thought the bomb had gone off where we were--downtown. We had no idea that anything had happened on the base."
After looking to make sure the street was safe, Robb and his friends dashed for their car and headed for the base. When they arrived at the base gate 15 minutes later, the Security Police there informed them that the towers had been bombed, which led Robb to assume that there had been more than one bomb set off. "You don't plan something like this, you don't expect something like this, but it's always in the back of your mind. They brief you about it as soon as you hit the deck," said Robb.
The wounded had already begun to pour into the base clinic as Robb arrived. "There are six treatment rooms in the clinic; all six were full, with two or three people in each room. The waiting room was full of people bleeding. There were two code blues [emergency resuscitations] going on when I arrived."
After making sure that everything inside the clinic was under control, Robb headed to a patio area just outside the building where the injured troops and their friends were beginning to gather. "The first thing I noticed," said Robb proudly, "was that every casualty had two or three of their buddies with them; they had already had first aid or buddy care applied to them." The wounded were brought to the clinic, treated with makeshift bandages of T-shirts, sheets and towels. "They were using blown-out doors, chairs, and ironing boards as stretchers," said Robb in admiration of the airmen-turned-medics. "It was an unbelievable sight."
As senior medical officer in Dhahran, Robb's job was "to be the mass casualty director and chief triage officer." Robb and his fellow medics quickly triaged the more than 200 casualties, arranging them into categories of delayed, minimal and immediate treatment. Injuries ranged from severe lacerations, several of which proved to be fatal, to concussions and minor cuts.
"I was so impressed, as were all the physicians," said Robb, "that all the training paid off. It was like you flipped a switch on and immediately everyone clicked in and was focused." Robb said that other than the voices of the medics giving orders and triaging the wounded, "you could hear a pin drop. There were no screams, no cries for help."
Even those who had been injured, said Robb, displayed selflessness and professionalism. "When we would come by and triage and re-triage the wounded, they would say, 'No, doc, I'm okay. Help someone else.'"
A patchwork team of doctors, nurses, and medical technicians from different countries and different branches of the service banded together to help the wounded. "We had 25 Air Force clinic personnel, including four doctors," said Robb, "10 air evacuation nurses and techs; 10 Army personnel, with one doctor among them; two British medics, a doctor and a tech; a French doctor; three pararescue troops; and before the night was out we had 20 emergency medical technicians" to help with the relief effort.
Some of those treating the wounded had their own injuries to deal with. We had injured pararescue troops who bandaged themselves up and were starting IV's. One of our flight surgeons was being bandaged for a serious chest wound while sewing up other patients," Robb recalled. The surgeon was later hospitalized for his injury, and was awarded an airman's medal for his bravery. By coincidence, he pinned on his major's gold leaf a week after the bombing.
Robb was amazed by the phenomenal response to the crisis from hospitals in downtown Dhahran and detachments from U.S. bases all over the world. "It just worked like clockwork," he said. Within 45 minutes to an hour, 20 ambulances, two emergency room doctors, two surgeons and 12 nurses arrived at the base from local hospitals. Twelve to 18 hours after the blast, a critical care air transport team was available to evacuate some of the more fragile casualties. Within 18-24 hours, U.S. Air Forces Europe sent their flying ambulance surgical team to Dhahran. The 23-person team from Incirlik, Turkey, included four different specialty surgeons, an anesthesiologist and six nurses. They got here just in time, because our guys were just about exhausted, said Robb.
The aid didn't stop there. Forty-eight hours after the bombing, Robb's clinic had five C-141 transport planes and six air evacuation crews at their disposal. In addition, an army combat stress team from Landsthul, Germany, flew in to attend to the psychological well-being of the survivors. At no time did we, as a clinic, feel alone, said Robb. [Our] success was not only that we had all those doctors and techs, but that we also had 2,000 airmen and soldiers trained in first aid and buddy care. That was quite a force multiplier.
Robb also insisted on giving credit to the doctors and staff of the Saudi Arabian hospitals at which the wounded were treated. "In addition to the excellent medical care, the warmth and compassion for us as human beings was evident in everything they did." According to Robb, nearly all of the injured troops got free phone calls home to their families their very first night in the hospital. The staff provided the soldiers with English newspapers, and placed soldiers together in rooms so they could support each other. "We had Saudi physicians tell us they were on call day or night, whenever they were needed. Every patient who left those hospitals had a smile on their face," said Robb. "It really goes to show you the cooperation you can have between Saudi hospitals and the U.S. government working together."
In all, 202 people were triaged, stabilized, and sent to hospitals downtown or at other bases. Of those, 82 were hospitalized the first night, and 64 stayed for several days. Even when the serious injuries had been dealt with, Robb and the other doctors remained on duty. To deal with the less serious cuts suffered by some 215 victims, the clinic personnel set up 25 impromptu suture stations in the dining hall. "Most of us didn't go to bed for 48 hours," Robb said.
According to Robb, things are slowly getting back to normal in Dhahran. There is heightened security on the base, but the last wounded soldier was air-evacuated out of Saudi Arabia eight days after the blast, the same day that Robb gave his final briefing on the emergency to U.S. and Saudi officials. His stay in the Middle East will be extended about a week to deal with the aftermath of the bombing. "Everyone's focused back on the mission. I think there's a sense of relief here," he said.
When Robb spoke of the 19 victims that he and the other doctors could not save, the regret in his voice was evident. Yet it was tempered by tremendous pride at the courage and organization of the victims of the blast, and the self-sacrifice of those who worked to help them. Robb continually emphasized how the airmen and soldiers' own buddy care was instrumental in saving many lives the night of the blast. Their response to the disaster "shows that the system works as advertised," he said.
As he finished listing all those who lent their time and aid to the cause of the wounded, Robb paused, and said simply, "We are on the right side."