More U.S. injured at Spanish base
From CNN Madrid Bureau Chief Al Goodman
 |
Story Tools
SPECIAL REPORT
|
|
|
MADRID, Spain (CNN) -- Forty-three more American military casualties from Iraq arrived Thursday at the U.S. Rota field hospital in southwest Spain, boosting to 201 the number of U.S. troops who have been treated there since the war began, Navy Lt. Corey Barker told CNN.
The new arrivals included 17 with combat wounds and 26 with "non-combat ailments," including illnesses and accidental injuries from weapons. The troops arrived on a plane from Kuwait, said Barker, a spokesman at Rota, a Spanish naval base used by the U.S. Sixth Fleet under a bilateral agreement.
On Thursday, Rota had 129 patients in its 250-bed U.S. military field hospital, which can be expanded to 500 beds. That facility opened this week, while an older 116-bed field hospital on the base is empty but on standby.
The war in Iraq is the first time the U.S. has put a major field hospital at Rota. It was chosen for this task because it is on the Atlantic Ocean near the Strait of Gibraltar, about halfway between Iraq and the United States, Barker said.
The Landstuhl Regional Medical Center at Ramstein Air Base in Germany remains the main U.S. military hospital in Europe and has treated more Iraq war casualties than Rota.
About 3,000 U.S. troops are stationed at Rota, and the U.S. military used the base extensively in the buildup to the war with Iraq.
The Rota field hospital is staffed with several hundred U.S. military personnel, mainly from Naval Hospital Bremerton, near Seattle.
