Speeding to the Rescue, Ending Up in Crossfire

THE CONFLICT IN IRAQ

Speeding to the Rescue, Ending Up in Crossfire
Iraqi ambulance drivers, often targeted by rebels and distrusted by coalition troops, work for meager pay in a crumbling system.
By Edmund Sanders
Times Staff Writer

September 25, 2005

BAGHDAD — Rescue worker Rasoul Halool had four bleeding victims in the back of his ambulance and was rushing to save others when a second roadside bomb tore the truck apart.

All the patients were killed. The blast sprayed shrapnel into Halool's eyes, neck and chest. He stumbled out of the burning ambulance to find guns pointed at him by U.S. and Iraqi soldiers, who were uncertain at that bloody moment whether Halool was victim or bomber.

"Nobody would help me," the ambulance driver recalled. Halool, 31, eventually waved down a passing car, which took him to a hospital.

Largely forgotten in the daily violence on the streets of Baghdad are the efforts of Iraq's ambulance drivers and rescue workers, who risk their lives in an increasingly hostile environment.

Insurgents often target ambulances with secondary bombs timed to strike those helping the injured. Rescue workers are searched and sometimes harassed by Iraqi police and U.S. troops worried about stolen ambulances being used to ferry militants, weapons and bombs.

Even by Iraq's standards, ambulance workers' $60-a-month salary is paltry — well below that of police, nurses and teachers.

The Health Ministry has no money for uniforms or even shortwave radios. The too-small fleet of ambulances is prone to breakdowns.

"The system is hanging on by a thread," said Abdul Kareem Sadr, deputy director of Baghdad's Ambulance Services, part of the Health Ministry. "These guys are heroes."

As a child, Halool dreamed about speeding through the city and saving lives. The reality in postwar Iraq proved too gritty. During his one-year stint, he dodged insurgent-fired grenades in Najaf, survived U.S. bullets in Fallouja and escaped ambush in Baghdad by thugs trying to steal his vehicle.

The April roadside bombing left Halool with blurred vision and $500 in hospital bills that the Health Ministry refused to pay. He requested a reassignment.

"I love the job, but how could I go back?" asked Halool, a father of seven.

Government officials acknowledge that the emergency network is buckling under the strain of ever-increasing violence. Iraq has about 660 ambulances nationwide and 180 in Baghdad, though by international standards the country should have 2,500 and 500, respectively.

"There's a critical shortage," said Sabah Rubayi, director-general of medical services in Iraq. Although a Canadian contract for 300 new vehicles is in the works and Japan has pledged to send several hundred, Iraq has received only about a dozen new ambulances since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, Rubayi said.

In Baghdad, a city of 5 million, the main emergency-response center relies on only 30 vehicles scattered throughout the city. Some days that number drops to as few as 18 because of accidents and breakdowns.

During the average 24-hour period, the ambulance center fields about 150 emergency calls, or one about every 10 minutes. That's before accounting for insurgent attacks, which cause the phones to ring off the hook.

It takes only one car bomb to bring the system to its knees. When 13 suicide car bombers struck the capital over two days this month, every available vehicle in the department was deployed, including sedans and pickup trucks.

During the Aug. 31 bridge stampede that killed nearly 1,000 people, seven ambulances had mechanical problems and one was disabled in a traffic accident.

Public and private hospitals maintain 150 ambulances citywide, but they are dispatched at the discretion of individual facilities and can't always be counted on to respond to emergencies.

During the regime of Saddam Hussein, a shortwave radio network coordinated response, most of it for heart attacks, births and other medical emergencies. Response times averaged 5 to 10 minutes.

But the radios no longer work. Rescue workers rely on their personal cellphones or nothing at all. Increasing traffic in the capital means ambulances can take an hour or more to reach their destinations, even in life-threatening situations.

Like much of Iraq's infrastructure, the emergency dispatch center in central Baghdad is in sore need of repair. The capital's equivalent of the 911 network — accessible by dialing 122 from any phone — rings in a tiny room with a wooden counter, five telephones, three operators and an oversized notebook the operators use to keep track of vehicles.

Many days, half of the 10 incoming lines don't work, so operators scan a small television set perched on a filing cabinet for news about bombs or explosions, dispatch supervisor Jawad Khadim said.

In front of the office are the twisted remains of ambulances destroyed or damaged by insurgent attacks or traffic accidents, including Halool's old vehicle. On the walls are memorial fliers with a picture of a driver who was shot in the back and killed by insurgents on Haifa street.

Three ambulance workers have been killed and 10 crippled or maimed in attacks this year, officials said.

Halool believes the second roadside bomb that destroyed his truck was triggered by remote control and set to explode just as he was making a U-turn to help the victims.

Such tactics have become all too common.

At a Baghdad bus depot last month, a second car bomb exploded 10 minutes after the first. Shortly thereafter, a third bomb struck at a hospital where victims were being taken. The combined blasts claimed 43 lives.

"Of course it's dangerous, but there's nothing you can do," said Majid Bachi Lafta, 43, an ambulance driver in Baghdad. "You just have to do it without thinking. If I thought about it, I probably wouldn't do it."

Insurgents aren't the only worry. U.S. and Iraqi security forces frequently stop and search ambulances, even during emergencies. Stolen or disguised ambulances have been used as car bombs to attack the International Red Cross, Baghdad hotels and other targets. Insurgent snipers in Fallouja used ambulances as cover. In Tall Afar, emergency vehicles sneaked fighters and weapons through checkpoints.

Late last month, ambulance driver Yousef Abid Ibrahim, 31, was rushing a pregnant Iraqi woman to a hospital at 2 a.m. when U.S. troops forced him to stop and lie on the pavement for nearly 30 minutes while they searched his vehicle. Soldiers allowed Ibrahim to continue on his way only after an Iraqi translator reported seeing the baby's head emerge, he said.

Iraqi police officers blame the Health Ministry for failing to provide proper uniforms to emergency workers and mark ambulances so they can be more easily identified.

"For now, the only way to know if there's a risk is to search," said police Lt. Ather Mimchabr.

Lafta, who has driven ambulances for 13 years, said he sometimes has second thoughts about his job. He decided to become a rescue worker after being severely burned during the Iraq-Iran war; an ambulance crew saved his life.

"But I could never quit," Lafta said, noting how excited his three girls become when they see him or his truck on television at the scene of an emergency.

"When I see the pride in their faces, it takes away the fear."