This is what medical care looks like on the front line CHRIS HUGHES
Casualty gets treatment
But incredibly, three brave Western medics are calmly waging their own life and death struggle to save friend and foe alike.
Iraqi special forces are closing in on the last remnants of ISIS in Mosul, fighting savage encounters in an area only the size of two football pitches.
Senior army commanders do not expect any of the fanatics will surrender in their last-stand battle around the al-nouri Mosque – now dubbed “ISIS’S ground zero”.
Yet in the midst of the warravaged alleyways of West Mosul’s Old City a valiant trio lead the operation to save wounded soldiers, civilians and even ISIS fighters.
The three, all with military backgrounds, have a hastily equipped Casualty Collection Centre – a Mash-style line field hospital where they treat bullet and shrapnel victims.
Exhausted from days of battle and in grimy, tattered clothes they await each incoming batch of wounded in sweltering 47C heat.
They perch on battered old furniture, even utilising a wheelchair, as they try to grab brief respite.
POSITION
The three – American veteran Eli Miller, 31, Swedish ex-soldier Erik Andersson, 22, and an Australian identified only as Anthony – have treated up to 150 victims a day.
Some of the wounded are literally dragged in, Others arrive strapped to the bonnets of Humvee vehicles.
The trio, from the non-government organisation Global Response Management, lead a team of 11 Iraqi medics who are also treating Civilians caught in hell of fighting patients in a battered open-fronted building. As another ear-shattering bomb goes off nearby and the clatter of machine gun fire rips through the air, Eli says calmly: “We only took this position last night and have been treating the wounded ever since. This is what you call medical care under fire, the first stop for the wounded here. We treat everyone. The front line is very close, maybe 200 metres away, and we are the first port of call for anyone who is wounded.
“There are people who have been trapped under rubble for three days suffering septic shock, dehydration, cases of delirium, shrapnel wounds, blast and bullet wounds.
“Many are civilians, some are soldiers. And yes, we do treat ISIS fighters. At the end of the day they are human beings – our job is to save them all and send them on to hospital.”
In the treatment centre a bloodied middle-aged civilian man is led out, both arms bandaged and with drips sticking out of each.
Terrified-looking locals have only just escaped the clutches of ISIS, running towards Iraqi lines through the bullets and explosions.
Asked how many of their patients survive, Erik says: “I would say most of them. We give them initial care – it could mean pulling shrapnel out, offering pain management, then ambulances take them to hospitals which are inundated.