While the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been costly in terms of dollars and American lives, combat has been teaching valuable lessons on how to treat trauma patients. A former KY3 News anchor, Spc. Jerry Jacob, is learning those lessons first hand as an Army medic.

The last time we visited Jacob was in San Antonio, where he was graduating from combat medic training. Since then, his training has really taken off at the Army's airborne school in Ft. Benning, Ga.

"Where you learn how to jump with everything, do a mission with everything you can carry, pushed out of a plane,” said Jacob.

The intense training gave Jacob another certification and, apparently, great relief after his first official jump was behind him without injury.

"I'm walking, I'm on my feet. Yeaaaah,” he said after that jump.

On his feet, and now working with a medical company at Fort Bragg, N. C., Jacob is learning everything he can but still practicing what he learned back in San Antonio.
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More patients are being saved out of this war than ever before.

"Every time we have a war, everything improves. We're improving every day,” said Sgt. Barry White, one of Jacob’s trainers.

The improvements are in a variety of ways. One is in the tools that medics use on the frontlines, like a one-armed tourniquet.

"It's simple. You can look at it in two seconds and know how to work it,” said White.

Another improvement is to the cutting edge drugs that medics and doctors use to stop their patients from bleeding to death.

"Actually two products are out there; one is quick clot, something medics use, a pad impregnated with sea shells. When you put it on a wound, it causes a reaction and bleeding stops in the local area,” said Dr. Timothy Woods.

Woods is a general surgeon. He and his young family moved to Springfield a year ago after more than a decade in the Air Force, the last five years of which Woods spent treating the war's worst casualties from Iraq and Afghanistan.

"My role was really to move patients immediately, being able to provide surgery should they need it in the air and take care of them in Germany,” said Woods.

In Germany is the primary receiving hospital for every casualty coming out of the war, and where yet another blood-clotting drug is saving even more patients.

"You give it through an IV; within minutes, you actually see those affects,” said Woods.

It's called Factor-7, and has been used in the United States to treat hemophilia and a small percentage of strokes.

"All of a sudden, an operative field pooled with blood becomes dry. Now you can focus on an area of concern as opposed to saying, ‘Where's all this blood coming from?’” the surgeon said.

While those blood-clotting drugs have saved a lot of lives, Woods says combat medicine has become more aggressive in every aspect during this war.

"It's leaps and bounds better than we've ever been,” said Woods.

It's an entire military medical system with progressive "echelons" of care, designed to respond more quickly than ever to what used to be called that first Golden Hour of treatment.

"We're finding now that Golden Hour is now a Golden 15 to 10 Minutes,” said Woods.

Those are minutes that make the difference between life and death for a generation of soldiers.

In addition to the one-armed tourniquet, the blood-clotting products, and the medical transport system, surgeons are treating head injuries more successfully than ever before. By temporarily removing parts of the skull, surgeons allow the brain to swell and recede with less permanent damage.