SABAH (89)
Memoirs of Sabah VatankhahInterviewed and Compiled by Fatemeh Doustkami
Translated by Natalie Haghverdian
2021-12-21
SABAH (89)
Memoirs of Sabah Vatankhah
Interviewed and Compiled by Fatemeh Doustkami
Translated by Natalie Haghverdian
Published by Soore Mehr Publishing Co.
Persian Version 2019
He started talking that we were inside the house and my wife was washing clothes in the yard when the mortar bomb hit the door and the big quiver hit my wife. I told him: “Do you still wanna stay?!” He said: “Not any more. If I stay, both my children will be lost too.”
I said: “One should have been killed so that you accept to leave here?! This poor woman was breast feeding. Now what will you do with her child? Your goats were so dear that you couldn’t let them go?!”
I couldn’t control myself and be silent. I held the old man responsible for his wife’s death. Although my words and anger would not bring back the woman but if the old man had really cooperated on that day, today the woman would be besides him. A death certificate was issued for the woman and her body was handed over to the old man and I didn’t understand where the old man went and what he did.
Once at midnight I was in emergency ward when two injured patients arrived from Minoo Island. The wounded patients were from Tehran and both were studying medicine in Tehran University.
We were surprised by their wounds. Their wounds were crushed and there was a white powder on the wounds. We didn’t know what kind of weapon could create such wound. The wounds swallowed quickly and had a strange appearance. The doctors didn’t know what treatment to opt. They were afraid to touch the wounds and make the situation worse than what it was. They decided to send them to Tehran. While we were arranging for the transfer, one of them became martyr. Later I learnt that the wounds were the result of phosphor and cluster weapons.
In Mahshahr, behind the mosque there was a small kiosk in which a young couple sold books and pamphlets of Mr. Ghara’ati and Sheikh Hossein Ansarian. These couple had a four five years old daughter who was very sweet and her name was Fatemeh. She had a round and tawny face, with black hairs and eyes and eye brows. Her small lips were red and beautiful.
Her face and behavior were charming. When we went to the kiosk to buy books, we chatted a lot with Fatemeh. She was a strange child. Although she was very young but she was very intelligent. She knew some small versus of Quoran by heart and read it for us. She told us the meaning of some of them and gave explanation about them. I started liking Fatemeh after two, three visits I had to the kiosk.
Of course it was expected to be that clever since the parents were revolutionary and idelogic. But the subject that attracted all towards Fatemeh was her nice words about issues related to revolution and Quoran and Imams. Whatever the topic was, she always had something to say. All individuals who commuted to Abadan and stayed in Mahshahr for a few days and went to mosque or referred to the kiosk knew Fatemeh.
A while later, Fatemeh burnt alive and became a martyr in a fire accident that hypocrites had created in the kiosk. My heart burnt on this news. On a morning that Fatemeh was sleeping in the container, her parents go into the mosque for Morning Prayer. The hypocrites arrive with the objective of assassinating the young active couple and set the container ablaze. Since it was full of books and papers, the fire starts rapidly and the flames melt the entrance door of the container. People who witnessed this scene, tell that Fatemeh was screaming and yelling while burning that her voice is still in their ears. They do everything to enter and save her but they are not able.
I was sobbing when I heard this. The scene of fire in container, burning of Quoran pages, jumping of that poor kid who was asleep and woke up to the flames, were in front of my eyes all the time. God knows how much terror she had endured and how much pain she has underwent. Her voice and sweet words were in my ear. What a strange incident had happened to her. She was special so her way of dying was also special. For a few days we only talked about Fatemeh in the hospital. Many of my friends knew her.
With the commencement of Ramadan, a young medical group came to Taleghani hospital. Dr. Akashe and Habibollah Zadeh were orthopedists and Dr. Mohammad Hossein Mandegar and Dr. Zamani were surgeons and heart specialists. I will never forget the services this medical group rendered to the hospital and patients. Their coming to the hospital coincided with the days that I went to surgery ward for a short while.
Most of the injuries brought to the hospital had been hit by quiver. Most of this quivers were coming from mortar bombs that had hit the ground and then hit the body of the fighters. The wound was covered with dust and was polluted. Sometimes there were also lots of thorns and debris and wood parts in the wounds of the patients. When the body part was injured like this, the first thing we did was to “scrub” the wounds.
Scrubbing included the washing of the wound. We did this with Betadine but when Dr. Akashe came to the hospital, he made a solution which was named after him. “Akasha solution” had some Savlon with some specific amount of Betadine and was a special solution to wash the wounds. The physician said that this solution sterilizes the wound and prepares it for treatment or surgery. We used this solution a lot in emergency ward besides its use in surgery room.
Dr. Akashe didn’t ignore any hand and foot and hanging finger whereas many doctors didn’t insist on grafting body parts in that condition. After the Akashe team left, once at midnight, a patient was brought with his middle finger cut. The doctor put the cut finger inside gauze and gave it to me. I took the finger and said: “What should I do with this finger?!” He said: “I don’t know. Since you are a religious person, I thought I should give it to you to bury it somewhere.”
I knew that the amputated finger has a chance for graft until 24 hours. I couldn’t believe that the physician could ignore that finger so easily, a finger that could be grafted to the body of its owner. I said: “Doctor why did you amputate it? This could be grafted …”
The doctor acted cold and said: “Leave it!” Then he went for another task.
For one second, I remembered Dr. Akashe; I remembered his efforts to preserve all the amputation body parts. I remembered the day that in this hospital, with limited facilities, he grafted the hand of a fighter which had been amputated from wrist and it was successful. The hand of the young patient, down the elbow, had been hit with lots of small quivers and had been amputated. The situation of the hand was so terrible that I was sure no doctor except Dr. Aksahe, would ignore the amputated hand.
When they took him to surgery room people who were with the doctor said that there is nothing to be done for the amputated hand. The doctor looked at the hand and the young man. When his colleagues said that apparently nothing can be done, the doctor went to the patient and rubbed his hand to his head and forehead and said: “It is sad, this person is very young! He needs this hand for his life. Especially the right hand!”
Although the doctor was perhaps ten years older than the patient but his fatherly tone made all silent. Based on physician’s order, the patient was given anesthesia. The physician had decided to graft the hand. He was talking about the grafting of the hand with such determination and will as if he knew the results of the surgery and was satisfied.
The physician scrubbed the wound with his solution. He washed all the layers of the flesh and skin with full sensitivity. It was around eleven o’clock at night; one night in holy month of Ramadan, one of those nights that the Iraqi artillery was hitting the city madly.
The voices could be heard constantly. There was a possibility that the roof of surgery room fall on us any instance. In this chaos, the tranquility of Dr. Akashe and his patience in cleaning the wound was strange and worth seeing. Usually the scrubbing of the wound was the responsibility of technician or we and the physician didn’t do it.
After scrubbing of the wound, he started stitching and grafting. First, he stitched two, three main vessels to each other which apparently were the main vessels of the hand. He was stitching the vessels so carefully as if he was dealing with an art work and working as a miniature work. After the main vessels, it was time to work on secondary vessels and a white and stretch tissue which I later understood were called Tandon.
He was doing this so artistically that it took him five six hours to do the graft surgery. We didn’t leave the surgery room even for one minute. We were watching the skillful fingers of Dr. Akashe in full silence. Sometimes the personnel cleaned the sweat on his forehead and gave him some water to refresh.
Nearly the end of the surgery, doctor who was happy with his masterpiece, started talking. He said that he was studying in America when the revolutionary demonstration of people before the victory of revolution had reached its peak. He said that I was there but my heart was with my people and my country; and I followed up the new of revolution minute by minute. After the victory of the revolution, I finished my studies and returned to Iran. He said that he had good condition to stay and work in America but he wanted to spend his specialty for his own people.
When he was done, he took a deep breath and said: “We have done our best to preserve the hand of this young man. From now on it is in the hands of God. If it is meant, the graft will be successful and if not, there is a good in it which we are not aware of.”
After the graft surgery, the surgeon bandaged the hand of the patient with gypsum bandage. After he came out of anesthesia, he sent him to ICU to be under supervision for a few days. It was around six o’clock in the morning. We had lost the sense of time. The next day the hand was a bit swollen but the doctor said that there is nothing to worry about.
After the surgery, the physician visited the patient every day. When the doctor hit the tip of the finger very gently, and the hand moved and showed reaction, I was there and saw the light in the eyes of Dr. Akashe. He turned to us and said: “Thanks God the graft has been successful. His fingers can feel.”
We felt relieved after a seven eight hours surgery. With the grace of God and efforts of Dr. Akashe, the young man had a hand again and was not supposed to stay disabled for the rest of his life. Days after the surgery, everybody in the hospital was talking about his graft surgery. The successful surgery of the hand brought a wave of vividness and freshness for the personnel and the patients and increased our mood such like the time with Katjusha was born in the hospital. It was hard to believe. How could a hand graft surgery, have effect on the mood of others was really questionable. I found that the answer was the purity of the physician during the surgery.
To be continued …
Number of Visits: 1895
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