Hero medic recognised for her Afghan service
An Air Force medic has won a medal after treating casualties in Afghanistan.
Flight Lieutenant Sherry Conway was presented with her operational service medal at RAF Lyneham in Wiltshire on Tuesday.
The 30-year-old from Portsmouth is based there with the Tactical Medical Wing, but scooped the medal for work in and around Camp Bastion late last year.
It included daring rescue missions to pick up wounded troops in remote forward bases.
And on one occasion, she saved a man's life with her team despite suffering a head injury at the beginning of the operation.
Flt Lt Conway was the officer in charge of a critical care suport team responsible for treating troops from the point where they were wounded.
She headed up a team with an anaethethetist, dental medical technician, two critical care nurses and a medical assistant.
Mainly based at Camp Bastion, the team transferred critical patients around different locations, collecting from the Afghan army and police, local nationals including enemy forces and allied troops.
Flt Lt Conway said: 'We would transfer our British patients to Kandahar and hand them to a team taking them to Birmingham for further treatment.
'By keeping the intensive care beds empty we helped keep operations on the ground continuing.'
She often helped the Medical Emergency Response Team (Mert) deliver patients to Camp Bastion.
She said: 'Once we were advised that two patients required urgent collection from a remote forward base.
'While we were loading I lost my footing and crashed my head on the rear of the helicopter, but we carried on.
'We landed at the base and the patients arrived in the dark, and we made our way back to Bastion.
'One of the patients had a serious abdominal injury and was placed on our ventilator which kept him alive.
'We had to put in many invasive tubes but we knew it was necessary if we were going to keep him alive.
'Then after the handover at Bastion I removed my armour to realise that I was covered in blood.
'It had been hours since I had fallen from the helicopter but I hadn't noticed.'
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Friday 25 May 2012
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