The Iran war is exposing dangerous gaps in the US military system built to save wounded troops
Military medical officials said that as US forces entered the war with Iran, they lacked the same level of medical support they saw during the Global War on Terror.
US Central Command Public Affairs The American doctors weren't in the room, or even in the country, when they were informed that the man's crushed limb could be saved.
The US service member had been deployed aboard a ship in the Middle East, but an equipment accident in March had left him with severe injuries that exceeded the ship's medical capabilities.
He had to go ashore for care, but there wasn't a US-run medical facility available nearby.
At a host-nation hospital in the region, local doctors monitored and treated him while reassuring their US counterparts from afar that he was in stable condition.
However, when he arrived at the American military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany, a week later, doctors saw a limb that had turned almost black and a life in danger.
The incident, described publicly to an audience of military medical professionals by US Army Col.
Jennifer Gurney during a panel on trauma case studies, speaks to a problem American forces have confronted amid the conflict with Iran.
The system built for treating wounded troops during the post-9/11 Global War on Terror has struggled in this new fight.
Gurney, who recently rotated out after serving as director of the Pentagon's Joint Trauma System , shared details of the incident at an August conference that Business Insider attended.
Her remarks were not an isolated warning.
Other military leaders who spoke at the event, along with half a dozen military medical officials interviewed separately, described a casualty-care system grappling with a battlefield far different from Iraq and Afghanistan .
Officials who spoke with Business Insider said that at the beginning of the Iran war, medical capabilities close to the fighting were constrained by persistent drone and missile threats .
They said that medical facilities on or near military centers have only recently received improved protection.
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