Emergency! Trying to Save a Life in Baghdad

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Finally the ambulance pulled up and we ran over to meet it. I swung the back door open and gasped. I was prepared for the gore of a shot man, but strangely unprepared for the state of the ambulance. There was Omar — a man who had been shot in the head and was unconscious — on a collapsed, broken stretcher in an empty, rusted ambulance, a ventilator bag held over him by Gassan, one of TIME's security guards Gassan, who had been on duty at the bureau the night before as I had slept peacefully. It was a picture of the absolute best and worst of Iraq: Gassan was the image of strength and kindness pumping his friend with oxygen as he sat on his knees in a filthy metal box that passed as an ambulance.

We pulled the stretcher out and carried Omar to the waiting K-9 Suburban. The stretcher wouldn't fit in the back with the dog kennel so we yanked the barking German Shepherd out and someone else offered to drive in the dog separately. The medic and I jumped in the back and she inserted an IV. As we were about to go through the checkpoint, an Iraqi pounded on the door and said the ambulance driver was insisting that we couldn't take the stretcher. He'd get fired. More money was exchanged and we promised to get the stretcher back to the gate.

On the way to the CSH, Omar's heart stopped. The medic began CPR as we sped and swayed through the barricaded streets of the Green Zone, racing over speed bumps that sent our heads into the roof of the car. She was so cool and calm as she worked on him amid the absurdity. I'd never felt so useless.

We pulled up to the CSH where Dr. Paffenberger was waiting and he whisked Omar directly into surgery. Fortunately for us, it was an unusually slow morning at the CSH. Dr. Poffenbarger emerged four hours later, mid-surgery, to update us. By now Omar's brother had arrived and waited along with Gassan and I. Dr. Poffenbarger calmly told us that Omar had survived surgery but there was too much swelling in his head to determine his chances of massive brain damage or death. The doctor's shirt was soaked with sweat and blood and he had a candy bar sticking out of the chest pocket. It was then that I remembered he had been on his way to bed and a hot meal when I called many hours earlier. I was astounded by his graciousness for people he didn't know and had no direct responsibility for.

Omar was finally wheeled out of surgery and placed in the ICU unit late that afternoon. We took turns sitting with him in the clean quiet room. Omar was as stable as could be and would have an MRI some time in the middle of the night to determine the damage and chances of survival. We moved like zombies in and out of Omar's room for the couple of days as his condition deteriorated and we were forced to decide the inevitable pulling of the plug to his ventilator. I sat with Faeza, Omar's wife, as Dr. Poffenbarger explained the situation. The first thing she said was "Khatab, Khatab," the name of their four year-old son. She would wail his name continuously for days later. Perhaps because he had become a father late in life, Omar and Khatab had a father-son relationship that was special by any standard. Faeza had clearly been uncomfortable in the American hospital and once the decision was made not not to intervene medically with his condition, she said goodbye to him and returned home to make funeral preparations. I would sit with her and the other women later in the spasm of emotion that typies the funerals held day in and day out in Iraq.

When I last saw Omar, I had snuck back up to his room to say goodbye privately. But when I got up to the ICU, there was an American nurse sitting with Omar, holding his hand. She had no reason to sit there with him — an unconscious, dying Iraqi man — but had chosen to do so. She got up as I approached the bed and then just gave me a soft smile and went to sit with a cherubic, young American soldier who was in the next bed. He too would die later that day. We still don't know who killed Omar and exactly why.