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Soldiers from the Norwegian Army's police advisory team roll out through Mazar-e Sharif
in northern Afghanistan. Their destination - a local Afghan Police headquarters where
a Norwegian Army doctor hopes to provide some basic, but potentially life-saving medical
training to the Afghan Uniform Police, a branch of the Afghan National Police whose duties
often involve performing rescue operations. 'Today we have the first aid course where
we will hold two hours course of basic medical skills for the AUP patrol men and today we're
lucky to have between 12 and 15 guys here. We will go through a theoretical part and
have a lot of practical as well. While the Afghan policemen receiving this
training did so with enthusiasm and good humour, they are well aware of the potentially life-saving
impact basic medical knowledge can have. None more so than AUP officer Luqman, whose
vehicle was hit by an IED while out on a mission. 'I was hit from the back of the vehicle, the
rear windshield shattered everywhere.' Sgt Luqman spent years suffering the consequences
because no first aid was given at the scene, something the Norwegians hope their training
will help provide. 'I had headaches and I thought I was going
crazy. Pain in my legs and my back.' Luckily for Luqman, Dr Hughes realised there
was something wrong. "I figured we could try and help him with
a small in-surgery and we got him stuck up back here in the office, everything clean
and neat with surgery equipment, got him anaesthetised, opened up into the skin and got into the skull
part where a fragment more or less one centimetre was still stuck there."
"Got it eventually out and sealed up some local vessels there, stitched him up and he's
been, according to the commander, a whole new person afterwards."
With the majority of coalition forces due to leave by the end of 2014, it is crucial
that this kind of medical training is sustainable. "Hopefully we can help them in our mission
to have a sustainable platform to move on, to keep on learning, so Afghans learning Afghans,
Afghans teaching Afghans, so they have a sustainable system when we one day are not here."