DO - Ohio University College of Osteopathic Medicine

from the Syrian border (where Al-Qaeda
fighters were believed to enter Iraq).
According to the battalion chaplain, Capt.
Terry Partin, they all were targets for rockets,
mortars and up to two attacks a day from
explosive devices or small-arms fire.
In those harrowing conditions, Hill took care
of his patients–and fellow medics. “A lot of
times, docs can be aloof,” Partin says. “They’re
on call 24 hours, and they never get any rest. But
Dr. Hill was always right there…you’d often
find him hanging out at the medic stations.”
Hill, “old enough to be some of these kids’
fathers,” required his crew to be all business
with the wounded, but made himself available
during down time. “They came to ask me
questions about relationships, marriage, my
opinions about women,” he says. “I had
already been through these things.”
His own life has settled down a bit now that
he’s stateside. Early this year, Hill–husband,
father of four, and soon-to-be grandfather–
became a staff physician at Orthopedic
Surgery and Sports Medicine in Temecula, Calif.,
and is on staff at Southwest Healthcare System
and Riverside County Regional Medical Center,
a level-one Trauma Center in Moreno Valley.
And last year, Weisskopf tells Today’s D.O. he
looked up Hill. The journalist interviewed him
for Blood Brothers: Among the Soldiers of
Ward 57, Weisskopf’s book, due out this fall.
Though Hill is readjusting to civilian life,
memories of the war stick with him. “It’s one
of those things I think about on a daily basis,”
he says. He still will jump at loud noises like
cars backfiring or the sound of metal on
metal in the operating theater. It takes him
back to the hair-trigger questions you would
always have on your mind over there: “How
close was that explosion? Was it incoming or
outgoing?” For now it’s neither. But as long
as he’s a military man, there’s always a chance
Hill will see the front a third time.
TODAY’S
DO
In the Aftermath
Just two weeks after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast last August,
Eric Beck trawled the flooded streets of New Orleans on a boat with
volunteers and military personnel, looking for survivors. The crew
stopped at every door, calling out for survivors, sometimes cutting the
engine for fear of missing shouts for help. Beck and coworkers rescued
five people still living in the attics of their homes, severely dehydrated.
Two were diabetic and in desperate need of insulin. All were too weak
to protest leaving any more.
Beck should have been preparing for his second year at Ohio University
College of Osteopathic Medicine when Katrina struck, but he couldn’t
overcome his nature. A volunteer firefighter and paramedic, Beck’s list of
volunteer and work activities goes on and on. In addition to being a
student, Beck works part-time at Coolville, Ohio, Emergency Medical
Services. His boss there, Joe Egan, only sees him about twice a month
when their schedules collide, but even in that short time, Egan thinks he
made a pretty good hire. “His skills are on par with anybody out there,”
Egan says.
Beck has helped out in emergency rooms and clinics for schools, donates
his time to give local Boy Scouts physical examinations as part of the group’s
Annual Physical Examination Program, and is an instructor for OU-COM’s
Annual Continuing Medical Education Program, where he teaches Advanced
Cardiac Life Support. “He’s a pretty busy guy,” Egan says.
No surprise, then, that Beck put school on hold, hopped a flight to Baton
Rouge, La., and volunteered at a makeshift command center for 24-hour
rescue operations.
Though Beck had done rescue missions before, never had he seen anything
quite like this. “There were literally bodies all over the place,” he says,
adding that some were “covered head to toe in, essentially, sewage. ..."
One man’s plight will stay with Beck for a long time. He only knows him
as Travis, a retired New Orleans
police officer, who was waiting
it out with his wife at a shelter
at Nicholls State University in
Thibodaux, La. Travis hadn’t
been religious about taking his
medication before the storm,
but with none available, he had
begun to suffer seizures and
fainting spells. But when Beck’s
team tried to take Travis to a
nearby hospital, he refused to go
without his scores of cardboard
boxes filled with personal
treasures. Beck and the other
paramedics couldn’t make him
choose–they loaded all of the boxes and Travis onto the ambulance.
It’s not only the victims of Katrina that stand out to Beck, it’s also the
people who came to help. He joined hundreds of volunteers and military
personnel in that command center in Baton Rouge. “For all of the problems
our country and our world have,” says Beck, “people still do rally around
those who are in need."
–Maureen Harmon with Melissa Cabral
Eric Beck, OMS II and 2006 OU-COM Student D.O. of the Year (with parents Scott and
Preston Beck), says that after Katrina, “There were literally bodies all over the place.”
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