Voices of Valor
Critical Care: A Navy Nurse Goes Above and Beyond

They care for the wounded and comfort the dying. At sea and on land, Navy nurses have stood in harm’s way with only one mission: to care for their patients.

	Navy Nurse Corps LT Lisa Saar, Fallujah, Iraq, 2007. Photo courtesy of LCDR Lisa Saar.

When US Navy Nurse Corps LT Lisa Saar voluntarily stepped into the pitch black of an Iraqi night—and flew through a blinding sandstorm that had grounded all medical helicopters—to save the life of a wounded Marine, she placed her bootprint upon the caring and courageous path that US Navy Nurses have tread for 100 years.

Saving a Marine's Life
On that night, Nov. 19, 2006, a critically wounded Marine needed to be evacuated to a larger hospital facility in Balad, Iraq, but, all medical helicopters were grounded by the storm. Fatefully, a Black Hawk helicopter had been cleared to fly through the storm on a separate mission. The pilot agreed to take the wounded Marine and drop him off in Balad on his way. Because the Black Hawk was not equipped for medical missions, the pilot would not take the Marine alone.

“Someone needed to go with him, and I said I would go because I had received him in the trauma bay, I was with him in the OR, and I really didn’t want to let him go,” says Saar, now a lieutenant commander. “We slid him on to the floor, and in the pitch darkness, in the middle of the storm, we took off for Balad.”

	Navy Nurse Corps LT Lisa Saar, a critical care nurse, worked in the Fallujah Surgical unit, Fallujah, Iraq, from August 2006 to March 2007. Photo courtesy of LCDR Lisa Saar.

The lieutenant cared for her patient, waited out the storm and then “caught a milk run” flight back to Fallujah the next night. The Navy nurse says that the flight was worth the risk. “It saved his life,” she says, “and I am honored to have helped in that process, but the story of that flight must reflect that it was a brave and skilled pilot and many involved who made that a life-saving mission.”

That life-saving flight, and the months she served with the Marines as a critical care nurse in the Fallujah Surgical unit in Iraq, from August 2006 to March 2007, earned then LT Saar the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal, presented April 5, 2007.

	Fallujah Surgical unit personnel, Fallujah, Iraq, 2007. Photo courtesy of LCDR Lisa Saar.

“My hope is that [this] honor does not present me as a kind of hero but that it can be used as an example to show what every Navy nurse does—to show that we care and to show that any Navy nurse would, and does, sacrifice, give anything, to save the life of a Marine,” LCDR Saar adds.

Today, the lieutenant commander is one of the more than 5,000 nurses serving in the US Navy—one of more than 150,000 female nurses who have served in the Navy Nurse Corps since the first 20 women entered the Corps 100 years ago, on May 13, 1908.

The Making of a Navy Nurse
LCDR Saar’s story began in the military family in which the Long Island, NY, native was raised. She became a licensed practical nurse (LPN) in northeastern Pennsylvania after high school graduation, but was inspired to try military service by the example of her father, an Air Force veteran. A brother and sister followed his example too, serving in the Air Force and Navy, respectively.

At 21, Nurse Saar enlisted in the Navy, in 1987. “I joined the Navy because I like being on the water and like the idea of serving my country, and I also liked the educational and life opportunities of the service,” recalls LCDR Saar who later entered the Navy Nurse Corps through the Medical Enlisting Commissioning Program. “I’m glad that I went the enlistment route because I not only enjoyed my duty, I learned a lot from my enlisted experiences, which I carry with me with pride.”

	Navy surgical nurse LT Lisa Saar, Camp Fallujah, Iraq, 2007. Photo courtesy of LCDR Lisa Saar.

Three Tours in the
Global War on Terror
LCDR Saar has served three tours in the Global War on Terror, including serving aboard the USNS Comfort in 2003, moored five miles off the Iraqi coast. She also served a six-month tour at Naval Hospital, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. During her 21-year Navy career, LCDR Saar has also twice been stationed at the National Navy Medical Center, Bethesda, MD. Today, she works as an operational bedside nurse and training officer at Naval Hospital, Bremerton, WA. She is also completing her studies for a law degree and hopes to become a nurse attorney and practice health care law after she retires from the Navy.

All those years of service have each had their share of sacrifices and rewards, but “that comes with the uniform,” she adds. “To be a Navy nurse means some extra sacrifices, like being away from family, working extra shifts. But that doesn’t matter; I’m a Navy nurse. That’s what we do, and I just love being a Navy nurse.”

Navy Nursing in the Sands of Iraq
The Navy Nurse Corps has taken the LCDR from the sea to the sand and back again. In the sands of Iraq, LCDR Saar certainly faced many of the sacrifices that military nurses have accepted for generations. “It was very busy,” she recalls. “We scheduled ourselves in 12-hour shifts, back to back. Every third day, we were to have downtime, but any nurse in any war could tell you that war doesn’t work on anyone’s schedule,” she adds. “I may have missed one or two, but I was there for every single trauma case that came in, well over 600.”

	US Navy Nurse LT Lisa Saar checked out the equipment operated in the war zone by the Marines she served with in Fallujah, Iraq. Photo courtesy of LCDR Lisa Saar.

Most of the life-and limb-saving work at Fallujah Surgical occurred in the trauma bay and operating room, where wounded arrived for urgent care, sometimes in large numbers. LCDR Saar’s citation specifically refers to one day, during the first week of her stay in Fallujah, when the then lieutenant’s  “excellent nursing skills and professionalism saved the lives of numerous patients during a mass casualty event involving 26 patients.”

32 Medivac Flights
In between, nurses were among those accompanying critically wounded Marines on medical evacuation flights, which transport wounded who are in urgent need of more definitive care, by helicopter, from the Fallujah battle area back to a larger hospital unit. LCDR Saar flew on 32 such missions during her tour in Iraq, including the life-saving sandstorm flight.

A nurse’s greatest reward is found within such missions, LCDR Saar believes. “There is no bigger reward than saving a Marine’s life,” she says. “To know that all that training and all that work could come together to make the difference in maintaining a limb or a life.”

(March 2008)

Download a PDF Version of
Critical Care: A Navy Nurse Goes Above and Beyond

View WHM 08 Resource Guide

Return to 2008 WHM Kit Main Page