Snapshot: Ship's Dentists

The dental staff played a minor role the day that Viking went down. However, just a few months before, on the afternoon of Sunday, 24 April 1988, when the submarine USS Bonefish suffered a devastating fire while conducting training exercises with the USS Kennedy (along with the USS Carr and USS McCloy), dental personnel were called upon to play a more involved role. Because of the fire, the USS Bonefish rapidly filled with thick black smoke and the order was given to abandon ship. Of the ninety-one men aboard, eighty-eight escaped and were picked up by the USS Carr and helicopters from the USS Kennedy. Twenty-two of the rescued men suffered from severe burns and smoke inhalation injuries requiring treatment aboard the carrier. In order to treat this number of victims, the Kennedy activated its mass casualty response team. Dentists and dental assistants were involved in performing triage. And on 23 October 1983, Navy dental personnel also had their daily routine jolted when a terrorist driving a truck loaded with explosives slammed into the lobby of the Marine headquarters and barracks of Battalion 1/8, 24th Marine Amphibious Unit (MAU) at Beirut International Airport. Two-hundred forty-one American servicemen were killed when the resulting explosion leveled the four-story building where several hundred military personnel were asleep. The only medical officer around was killed in the explosion. Two Navy dentists assigned to the 24th MAU were within five-hundred yards of the blast and immediately responded by mustering a group of Navy corpsmen and dental technicians and providing the first emergency treatment to the wounded. The dentists were Lieutenant G.U. Bigelow and Lieutenant J.J. Ware, and the Navy dental technicians were DT3 W. Fly and DN M. Bernal. Lieutenant Bigelow worked with five hospital corpsmen in providing emergency treatment. Lieutenant Ware set up a battalion aid station and, assisted by ten hospital corpsmen and the two dental technicians, performed the initial triage, tagged and identified patients, started intravenous procedures, and provided other emergency care such as splinting, bleeding control, and pain relief. During the first two hours following the explosion, the two dentists and support team treated sixty-five casualties and prepared them for evacuation to treatment ships offshore. At the same time, medical personnel from nearby ships were brought to the disaster site to augment the medical support there. To my knowledge, everything in this book is true, although some names have been changed. Snapshot: Ship’s Dentists is not a book filled to the brim with character development and spectacular, entertaining human follies and predicaments. It is instead just a nonchalant description of one person’s adventure, told in an unadorned, straightforward manner. The spaces between human beings—their ideas, dreams, desires, divorces, personal tragedies, shortcomings and strengths, and outrageous shenanigans—are not drawn in. That would be for another, different book—one that offers more than just a snapshot. I put this work together to give back to an organization that is like a big family—maybe the book might stimulate the interest of dental students so perhaps some might consider serving in the Navy. And as it portrays an alternative career path in dentistry, for nonmilitary colleagues it might open up new perspectives on this wonderful profession we share. And it may give people outside the dental occupation a perfunctory peek into navy and dental life. All in all, I hope it makes for an interesting adventure.