By Lt. General (Dr.) Paul K. Carlton, Jr , USAF (Ret.), USAFA 1969
STARRS Board of Advisors
I was in the Pentagon on 9/11.
We were in the middle of our first briefing with new Chief of Staff and new Secretary of the Air Force. When they flashed up the picture of the second airplane hit on the World Trade Centers we dismissed the group.
I headed to the Vice Chief’s office to discuss how we might help New York City on the medical side. We had just started to discuss the opportunities when the building shook and the entire building filled with smoke.
I headed to the Pentagon Clinic, picked up a medical team, and headed to the Center Courtyard. We ended up breaking into the Navy SCIF through the AE Corridor, an alley between B and C rings, and rescuing three from a certain death. The building collapsed on us so we had to retreat back to the Center Courtyard.
As I exited the 4 Corridor I saw a woman intubate a female Army officer in distress but forgot to secure the patients hands, so the patient then promptly pulled the endotracheal tube out, which the meant she had lower airways disease from the smoke and upper airway disease from spasm of the vocal cords.
I threw why offending person out of the Center Courtyard and started to do a surgical airway on the unconscious female on the ground, the last step there is to tell the patient she will feel some pressure on her neck, and insure she was fully un-conscience. She squeezed my hand, telling me she was mentating, so I commandeered a golf cart, loaded her up, and told her she would feel that pressure if she quit squeezing my hand.
She squeezed all the way to the outside of the building, where I stopped there first car that passed by, loaded her into the back seat, and instructed the driver to take this person to the nearest emergency room. She bought a ventilator at the hospital for a week but then made a complete recovery.
The most important part of the story actually started in February 2001 when the Clinic commander and I were discussed an up coming exercise for his clinic.
An airplane took off from the north runway at Reagan Airport and flew directly over us. He looked at me and said “let us do an airplane hits the Pentagon, medics you are up”. As a student of aircraft accidents I remembered Air Florida in 1982 crashed on take off from the north runway and ended up about 1/4 of a mile from the Pentagon.
So we did an exercise in May 2001 and were not happy. We had not evacuated the building well, did not have protective equipment for our teams, and had not trained any of our medical teams in triage.
So we did it again on 28 August 2001 and did much better. I announced to the Air Staff at the next meeting that we were ready to respond to an aircraft hitting the Pentagon; everyone laughed!
Part of the equipment was fire resistant vests to put on to ID who was who. When I caught on fire in the SCIF, my vest was put out by the man behind me and saved my life.
Realistic practices really do save lives!
STARRS Board of Advisors member Lt. General (Dr.) Paul K. Carlton, Jr , USAF (Ret.) is a 1969 graduate of the US Air Force Academy. He was the Surgeon General of the Air Force and served as functional manager of the U.S. Air Force Medical Service.
He advised the Secretary of the Air Force and Air Force Chief of Staff, as well as the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs on matters pertaining to the health of Air Force people. He had authority to commit resources worldwide for the Air Force Medical Service, to make decisions affecting the delivery of medical services, and to develop plans, programs and procedures to support peacetime and wartime medical service missions. He exercised direction, guidance and technical management of more than 42,400 people assigned to 78 medical facilities worldwide.
General Carlton is a fellow and former Air Force governor of the American College of Surgeons. He was named a consultant in general surgery to the Air Force surgeon general in 1981. He conceptualized and implemented the first Air Force rapid-response surgical team in Europe — the flying ambulance surgical trauma team. He remains an active surgeon having performed more than 4,000 operations as principal surgeon and 6,000 as first assistant.
He has published extensively in medical literature. An active flier, General Carlton holds Federal Aviation Administration commercial, instrument, multi-engine, glider and instructor ratings. During Operation Desert Storm, he commanded the 1702nd Air Refueling Wing Contingency Hospital, completing 32 combat support missions and 140 combat flying hours in the C-21, C-130, KC-10 and KC-135.
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