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Interview Robert Washburn
ADM's Steve Sapienza
interviews this resident prosthetist at an orthopedic laboratory
for"Survivor's Stories: Americans and Landmines" |
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MR. SAPIENZA: Why don't you first introduce yourself, and say where you live, where you're from.
MR. WASHBURN: I'm Bob Washburn, I live in Scotia, New York. I grew up in Maine, and have moved... been in ten states in my lifetime. This is the tenth one.
I work here at Lator Orthopedic Laboratory, and I make artificial limbs. I do everything right from the evaluation of the patient, right through fitting, delivery, actually building the arms or the legs, and right through delivery and follow-up.
SAPIENZA: Now you're still training, really, right?
WASHBURN: Yeah.
SAPIENZA: So what do you want to do, what do you want to accomplish when you finish your training, your studies?
WASHBURN: Well, in November I'll take the first two parts of my board for certification exams. It's a three-part test, one's written, one's a written simulation, and one is an actual, see a patient, follow him all the way through, and that will be in January.
But the two written ones are going to be in November. And I will take those probably in Philadelphia, and then pass my boards, hopefully.
SAPIENZA: And what will you do after you pass your boards? What are your goals, what are your plans?
WASHBURN: After I pass all three sections of the exam, then I will be a certified prosthetist, and I will be working here, pretty much doing the same thing, more responsibility, obviously, with the exams passed.
SAPIENZA: Okay, and if you could just briefly explain what is the science or the art of the prosthetist?
What do you do?
WASHBURN: I make artificial limbs, I deal with doctors and physical therapists and occupational therapists, and I take patients all the way from first time, right after their amputation, all the way through design, manufacture, delivery, follow-up. I'm involved in all of that.
SAPIENZA: How did you come to study the science of prosthetics?
WASHBURN: Actually, I got into the field because of my own amputation. I stepped on a landmine in 1996 in Bosnia, and just was in the prosthetics shop at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in D.C., and I just happened to be asking the guy some questions, and he said "well, maybe you'll be doing this some day."
And I said "Well, maybe I will." And he got me in touch with the national headquarters, and I got in touch with two of the schools through them, and I applied for the schools, and I got accepted. So I went to school, and that was a one-year school, and then I was here for a year, as a resident, and now I'm eligible to take my boards.
SAPIENZA: Okay, let's talk a little bit about Bosnia. How did you get, where were you stationed before you went to Bosnia, and how did you get there, and where did you go?
WASHBURN: I was stationed in Baumholder, Germany, and that's near the French border. And I was there for - I had signed into the unit, I was there for a month before we loaded on to the train, and we drove by train into Hungary, and then two or three days after we were in Hungary, we actually drove our vehicles into Bosnia.
SAPIENZA: And where in Bosnia did you drive into, from Hungary?
WASHBURN: We crossed the Sava River, down a road there -- none of them were really well labeled. Down the road we went, and then we were, initially we were outside of Tuzla for a little while, for the first four or five days.
SAPIENZA: And what was your job while you were with the military? What was your company, what did you do?
WASHBURN: I was a platoon leader for the 40th Engineer Battalion, in an engineer company, and our job was to clear roads of landmines and/or buildings, just to make sure there was no boobytraps, landmines, unexploded ordnance, anything that could hurt civilians when they came back, if they came back.
SAPIENZA: And at that time, how many landmines were you told that you all could face? I mean, how many were out there in Bosnia at that time?
WASHBURN: We were told to expect six to nine million, in Bosnia, all over. We saw, I was there for less than a month, and I know of two or three that we actually saw.
SAPIENZA: Prior to your injury, how was the tour in Bosnia going? You were a peacekeeper, right?
WASHBURN: Yes. I was right on the zone of separation. There were nights when we heard gunfire in the distance, but it wasn't directed at us, and more than likely it was, we were told it was probably just some drunk guys having a party.
But there was gunfire, so, and they could have been fighting. We were there, but then, you know, Bosnians don't have anything to compare with an M-1 tank, so they're not going to mess with us too much.
SAPIENZA: So, if you could describe the day's events on February 1, 1996, leading up to that fateful step that you took. And if you'd start with the date, or --
WASHBURN: On the morning of February 1st, we
relocated to a different place, and we were in the
process of getting our stuff moved over, getting all of
our people moved over, and setting up our new camp.
Then we went on a mission with the 3rd Battalion 4th
Cavalry, and it was their mission and I was really just
along for the ride. There were myself and three others
from my platoon, and that was it. There was
one other person from our engineer battalion, and that
was our battalion intelligence officer, and he was
communicating with the locals, and with an interpreter.
Because two days before I got hurt, there was a
vehicle that hit a landmine, one from the 4th Cavalry,
and we went there to investigate, because this was
already supposedly a cleared area, and we wanted to
find out what was going on with this place. And
whether it was worth opening the road, making the
road passable from one end to the other.
SAPIENZA: So, describe, I mean physically, what did it look like? Were you guys in a convoy, how many trucks were there, what was going on?
WASHBURN: Okay, we were in a single-file, there were probably ten vehicles, and ours was somewhere in the middle, not first and not last. The roads in Bosnia are very narrow, and barely wide enough for the Bradleys to -- tanks, basically -- and so we were single-file. But instead of talking on the radio, all the leaders walked to the front of the vehicles for a little pow-wow, just to see whether we should open the road, or should leave it closed.
And we agreed that we should leave the road closed, because it was not a high-traffic road, and it was not one that we really needed for anything, and we could get to the other end by going around.
So there was only about a mile, mile and a half of unopen road, and we decided that it was best just to leave it unopened.
SAPIENZA: And then what happened?
WASHBURN: As we were, we had finished our discussion, and as we were walking back to the vehicle, then I stepped on a landmine, and the blast obviously took off some of my toes, blew me up in the air, and uncovered another mine between my legs, that I landed on.
Everybody else was cleared away, was shuffled back to their vehicles. The other three from my platoon came up after they had all their anti-mine protective gear...
SAPIENZA: These were guys that were from your platoon, right?
WASHBURN: The three guys with me that were from my platoon all put on their protective gear, about 150 pounds of lined vest, pants, helmet, mask, gloves, and they came up to make sure there were no other mines besides the one that was between my legs, and cleared around me, and then they carried me out.
SAPIENZA: And you mentioned someone was right there, at one point, and did see the landmine.
WASHBURN: Yeah, in the first blast, everybody could see that I was the one that was hurt. My boot was flayed open, and I was looking up at the clouds, so he ran over just for immediate first aid, and he was the one that told me that there was the other mine that was between my legs, and actually, he was the tank commander of the person driving the vehicle two days before.
So, this happened to be the same guy, because he wanted to see what was going on, too. So he was just along for the ride, as well.
SAPIENZA: And when you stepped on that mine, and it threw you, what was the, did you realize what had happened? I mean, what was going through your head?
WASHBURN: Well, initially, I actually thought it was, I was pretty sure I knew exactly what happened, but for the first maybe 30 seconds, I thought it was the guy beside me or behind me, because there was a blast, and there were people screaming, and you know, I'm looking up at the clouds, and I just figured it was the blast, and then, my foot started hurting, and said oh, and I looked down, and then I saw my boot was split open, and at least two of my toes were already gone.
SAPIENZA: What did you think was going to happen at that point?
WASHBURN: I didn't know, I was just kind of "oh, I stepped on a land mine," and I was fortunate enough to be Med-evaced out of there very fast. We were told when we left Germany to expect up to a two-hour delay, because there are only so many Medivac helicopters for all of Bosnia, and I was into the hospital within 45 minutes.
SAPIENZA: How did you get from where you were there after the blast, to the hospital?
WASHBURN: There were, like I said, the three guys from my platoon, and one other guy. Each grabbed an arm, one guy grabbed each arm, one guy grabbed each leg, they picked me up and they carried me to a place where they put me in the back of a Bradley, where the Bradley drove me to a place where the helicopter could land, and then a short, five-minute helicopter flight, and then actually, I was put in an ambulance, and for a two-minute ride. And, I found out later that it was just so muddy at the heliport that a stretcher would get stuck in the mud, just from the 20 yards between the heliport and the front door of the hospital.
So what they did was they just put me in an ambulance, they turned the ambulance around, and then they took me out of the ambulance. And I was still probably, I lost track of time, but I'm guessing it was only 45 minutes or less.
SAPIENZA: What happened in the hospital once you got there?
WASHBURN: I got to the hospital in Tuzla, the MASH Unit. I underwent one surgery immediately, and another surgery two days later, just to remove the dead skin and tissue and try to clean out the wound as best they could.
They didn't close the wound until I got to Walter Reed, which was on the 10th, and the first surgery there was on the 12th or something, of February.
SAPIENZA: When you were in the hospital, you got news that another soldier had stepped on a landmine, is that how the events unfolded? Was there another American before you, or right around that same time, that also stepped on a landmine?
WASHBURN: Three days after I got hurt, there was a person that was the first American killed, and the details on that were a little sketchy. I heard two or three different stories as to what happened.
SAPIENZA: What were those stories?
WASHBURN: I heard one that he was taking souvenirs, or he was taking a leak in the woods, or whatever, but I heard them all, and I just filed it away, that okay, somebody died.
SAPIENZA: And how did he, how did that person die? The first American?
WASHBURN: It was from whatever it was, either he took a leak on it, or picked it up or something, and it blew up.
SAPIENZA: You're talking about a landmine?
WASHBURN: I don't know what it was. It could have been just some kind of something he wanted for a souvenir, unexploded ordnance, or it could have been a landmine.
SAPIENZA: Up until that point, had any other peacekeepers stepped on landmines?
WASHBURN: No. I was the first peacekeeper, NATO peacekeeper. I was the first NATO peacekeeper to step on a landmine, and as far as I know, three days after, that was the first guy killed.
SAPIENZA: Were you and your platoon aware of the dangers of landmines in Bosnia?
WASHBURN: Yeah, we had classes, mine preparation, and what to look for, but, and we had metal detectors, but they don't work for plastic mines. And the one I stepped on, obviously there was nothing left of the mine, but we're pretty sure it was all made out of plastic, it was a PMA-3, is the best we can figure, the most likely.
SAPIENZA: Do you think that a mine awareness training will save lives? Or save lives and prevent injuries to U.S. soldiers?
WASHBURN: Mine awareness training will definitely help to save lives, or prevent injuries, but it will not completely eliminate it. It's unavoidable. Like the one I stepped on, it's all plastic so it couldn't be detected, it's been there for a couple of years, so you can't see any ground markings.
You know, and it's only a quarter of an inch or so under the surface, so it's just waiting for somebody to step on it.
SAPIENZA: Does your experience in Bosnia leave you with any wisdom, or thoughts about the U.S. soldiers in Kosovo right now?
WASHBURN: I wish that U.S. troops were not in Kosovo, because I see similar things that happened to me, happening over there. Because they're not completely avoidable.
SAPIENZA: If you look at how many civilians have died from landmines in Bosnia since 1992, I think it's somewhere around, almost close to 4,000, and I've heard numbers where 80 peacekeepers.
WASHBURN: I haven't heard numbers exactly as to how many people were injured in Bosnia.
SAPIENZA: Well, can you talk to sort of the indiscriminate nature of how these weapons are used, really, are put in place to slow an army, or demoralize an army, but they tend to also have disastrous effects on civilians, too.
WASHBURN: Well that's from a military standpoint, they're designed so that the side, whoever is placing the landmines doesn't lose the terrain, and where we were, right on the zone of separation, there are, it was a very much fought-over area.
One side would landmine it, put landmines in, so that the other side wouldn't take it over, and then, they would lose the land anyway. The other side would take it over, and they would put landmines in it.
So that they wouldn't lose it. Sometimes three, four, five times, nobody knows where the mines were. A lot of people that were putting mines in that would have known where they were, are killed one way or the other, either shot from direct contact, or they got blown up by a mine.
As for the indiscriminate nature, there are approximately 80 percent of landmines are civilians, and 40 percent of them, roughly, are children. Because landmines don't know who, don't care who they blow up.
And a lot of times, long after the war has been over, they're just sitting in the ground waiting for somebody to step on it.
SAPIENZA: How do you feel about the, as an American landmine survivor, and also a veteran, how do you feel about the use of landmines by the U.S. military and other militaries?
WASHBURN: I think it's absolutely ridiculous that we still use landmines. It's ancient. They're outdated. I cannot be forced to believe that there's nothing in this entire military, with the strongest military in the world, there is nothing in this arsenal that would do what a landmine does.
I mean, when I can look at, when I can pull up on the computer, and I can look at a clothesline in my backyard, and count the buttons on my shirts, then I would think there would be something that they could use.
Because right now, the U.S. standpoint is to only place, that landmines are still effective, and the only reason they still keep them is for Korea. And I think that's a bunch of bull.
SAPIENZA: The International Campaign to Ban Landmines actually was successful in getting a treaty signed in Ottawa. The U.S. was not part of that.
How do you feel about the U.S. not being part of this international treaty?
WASHBURN: I think the U.S. is stalling instead of signing a treaty now, because their biggest reason is for Korea. But it's, we have spent some American money and we have American-made landmines that are causing this problem, so we should be part of the solution, as well.
SAPIENZA: Your conviction or your involvement in this cause led you to go to Washington, on the anniversary of the treaty. Could you tell us when that was, and why you went, and what you did there?
WASHBURN: On March 1st I was in a press conference in D.C. We talked to some senators, and we also talked to the National Security Council, as well as a march along Pennsylvania Avenue.
SAPIENZA: And what did you do there, at the White House?
WASHBURN: Actually, for a demonstration, we were carrying lots of artificial limbs, and we threw them in a pile, and I took my leg off as well, because I'm able to walk without my leg.
So I just took off the outer shell of my prosthesis and threw that on the pile as well, and then I just walked around the park, and we just left the pile there for a while, and somebody else picked them up.
SAPIENZA: When I talked to you on the phone, you talked about your meeting with the National Security Council, and where you had a good back and forth with one of the members about landmines. Could you cover that again, and say "During our stop in Washington," or "While we were in Washington, we met with the National Security Council," and then go into that story.
WASHBURN: While we were in Washington, a group of landmine survivors met with the National Security Council, to discuss why they feel that we should still keep them.
And I asked the guy if we had landmines in this country, would the U.S.'s standpoint be any different. And he said basically, yes. So I said if it's our landmines, and it's our money sponsoring these landmines around the world, then we should be part of the solution as well.
And then they just kind of well, um, well, um.
SAPIENZA: What do you think of the U.S. Government's position right now, where they're putting emphasis on de-mining. They call it "hemiglobal humanitarian de-mining efforts."
What do you think of that?
WASHBURN: Well, if there were no more landmines ever put in the ground, it will still take more than a hundred years to clear them all.
We need to, we have the resources, and the manpower; we need to be more proactive in doing this, so that we could do it quicker.
SAPIENZA: You work in an office where you help a lot of people who need artificial limbs. If you look around where you work, you have a lot of high tech instruments, a capability of making some very well-fitting, useful limbs to people.
How do you, or what do you think about developing countries, where people don't have access to this level of technology to help them?
WASHBURN: I think it's unfortunate that developing countries, Third World countries, don't have the technology that we have here, but they have to do with what they got, because for some of them, one artificial limb may be all they get for their lifetime.
Me personally, I've been an amputee for three years, or three and a half years, and I've had seven. So, for different reasons, and also, I'm thinking, I already got seven of them, you know.
Some people in like maybe Cambodia, they may get one for their lifetime, so it has to be, and if somebody's young, like myself, or younger, you know, kids, eleven, twelve, thirteen years old, it's got to last their whole entire life.
I work at Lator Orthopedic Laboratory, it's in Latham, New York, and we're just a little ways outside of Albany.
SAPIENZA: And just, once again, you make--
WASHBURN: I make artificial limbs, arms and legs, and I do everything from evaluation of the patient, all the way right through manufacture, component selection, delivery, follow-up, to make sure everything is okay.
SAPIENZA: And where are these limbs manufactured?
WASHBURN: Right here. The limbs are manufactured right here. We do all the work right in this office. The only thing that we don't make is the actual components, but then, the part, the socket, the actual, what's touching your residual limb is always all made here, and they're all custom-made.
SAPIENZA: Who are your patients? I mean, what, can you talk about age group...
WASHBURN: Most of our patients are elderly, diabetic, disvascular, poor circulation, but we have some car accident, motorcycle accident patients. We have one or two cancer patients, some children, congenital birth defects.
But primarily, probably 80 percent or so are poor circulation.
SAPIENZA: What would you like to see happen within the next few years with regard to the United States and landmines?
WASHBURN: Well, I would like to see the United States take a stand, because our money and our landmines have gone to do this, that we should. Plus we're the strongest military nation in the world, and we should be proactive in stopping landmine use right now, and then be proactive in clearing up what's out there already.
SAPIENZA: Okay. That's good. So, when you were in D.C. and you gave your message to the press, and you had the events, what exactly were you trying to do?
WASHBURN: When we were in D.C., ...the biggest thing, we were putting an American face on the landmine problem, because landmines do affect Americans, some of them military, some of them were civilian. So, you know, we're part of the problem.
SAPIENZA: Do you think it's an issue Americans really should be concerned about?
WASHBURN: It really is, yeah, because we're, it is a big issue, because of the fact that our money and our landmines have gone to do this. We don't, most Americans don't think about it too much, because we don't have landmines in this country. But then, places like Cambodia, that have one landmine for every single person in the whole entire country, and there are ten million people or so in the size of Connecticut, then landmines are a big problem.
There are people in this field that go abroad to help with Third World countries, with technology, with used components, sometimes, to help them with prosthetics, because it's such a big demand over there, because of the landmine issue.
And we don't see that as much here. But then, our resources, and our time and money are going over there, so we really need to be more involved.
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