Police help burned boy

Guns Magazine, May, 2008

For Yousef Kasim, living in the Five Farms area of Baghdad is a challenge. His family lives in a mud brick home, with no running water or electricity where, until recently, Al Qaeda terrorists roamed the area generating a swath of destruction.

Coalition and Iraqi Security Forces helped Yousef and his family by first clearing the area of terrorists and again last December 13 when they treated the boy's severe burns.

That day, Yousef was chasing the family kitten around the family's outdoor oven when his pants snagged on a grate covering the fire pit; he tripped and landed in the stew his mother was cooking causing severe burns from his right hip down to his right knee.

An Iraqi National policemen noticed the badly burned boy while passing out candy and informed American medics.

Upon arriving at the family's home, Staff Sgt. Antonio Ellison, a Charlotte, North Carolina, native and a 1-2-1 National Police Training Team medic squeezed into the small house along with the boy's family, NPs and fellow Soldiers, quickly assessed the boy's burns were major and began immediate treatment. He gave the Yousef some pain medicine and lotion for the burns he characterized as "real bad second degree burns over nine percent of the boys body."

"When we first saw him, he wouldn't eat or sleep, he would just lay there crying," said Ellison. During the second visit, the boy was much better. "Four days (after being treated) he got up and was walking around, and yesterday he started to wear clothes over the burn site," he added.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

On Dec. 20, the medics and the policemen returned to the family's home for the third time to check the youngster's condition and to give him a much-needed haircut.

On the third visit, the burns were largely scabbed over, but he still needed more lotion to help the area heal properly. "Put this on him before he goes to bed every night," Ellison said to his mother.

Yousef's mother couldn't think of words to describe how she felt. "Honestly, there are no words I can tell you," said Saadya Ibrahim with a huge grin. She added she always asks God to keep the policemen and their American counterparts safe as they go about their duties.--Sgt. 1st Class Robert Timmons, 4 IBCT, 1ID Public Affairs