Story by 1st Lt. Anthony M. Formica
1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division Public Affairs  

First Lt. Nicholas Vogt, platoon leader with the 1st Battalion, 5th Infantry Regiment, 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, stands next to a village elder during a mission in Kandahar province, Afghanistan. (Courtesy Photo)

PANJWA’I DISTRICT, Afghanistan – On the evening of Nov. 12, Sgt. Adam Lundy found himself in the ROLE 3 hospital at Kandahar Airfield. Just two hours prior, Lundy, an Alliance, Neb., native, was on patrol in the western side of Panjwa’i district, when his platoon struck several IEDs.

Suffering multiple shrapnel wounds, he was MEDEVACed to Role 3 medical facility for further assessment. In spite of having received shrapnel wounds to his face, arms and torso, he was listed in good condition and was able to walk unassisted.

Two of his comrades, 1st Lt. Nicholas Vogt and Spc. Calvin Pereda, were not as fortunate. Pereda, the platoon’s radio-telephone operator, had been in the immediate vicinity of the blast area of the first IED and suffered massive internal bleeding, which ultimately cost him his life.

For Pereda, it was the second time in his seven months in Afghanistan that he had been injured in combat.

Vogt, a 2010 graduate of West Point, had barely been in charge of his platoon for a month when he had heroically pushed one of his soldiers out of the way of a second IED and absorbed the brunt of the blast.

The force of the blast combined with the projectiles seriously injured the Ohio native.

As a result, Vogt was listed in critical condition and was under constant observation at the Intensive Care Unit, requiring a double-amputation and massive amounts of blood to stay alive.

Lundy, a combat veteran of both Iraq and Afghanistan, recalls being overcome with emotion at learning about the condition of both of his comrades.

“I couldn’t think,” Lundy said, remembering that day. “I needed to cool off, clear my head.” Lundy recalls not being able to formulate cogent emotions, let alone thoughts.

“I was just feeling so many things, anger, fear, guilt, confusion … all of it,” he said.

Lundy went to sit with Sgt. Stephen Dodson; a soldier from his battalion who oversees the battalion’s wounded soldiers on KAF. As Dodson recalls, although Vogt was still alive, the severity of his injuries had the doctors worried.

“They opened up his chest and had to manually massage his heart several times in order to keep what blood he had left pumping through his body,” Dodson commented.

The biggest risk to Vogt’s life was the fact that he had lost so much blood—so much, in fact, that it would take 500 units to save his life. Vogt received more blood than any other surviving casualty in U.S. history.

This miracle was well-documented in the American press and stood to highlight the iron grit in Vogt’s character, giving him the recognition he deserved as a true fighter and American infantryman. What is less known, and less reported on, however, is the inspiring story that enabled the miracle to take place, a story of service members from across the armed forces banding together to save the life of one of their own.

“I’m not sure whose idea it was to get people to give blood … it was sort of a group consensus after we learned that the hospital would need donors,” Lundy said.

According to Maj. Raynae Leslie, the officer in charge of the hospital’s Aphaeresis Element, Vogt’s bed was so soaked in blood that it needed to be washed off before it could be used further, and the doctors operating on him knew they were going to need a lot more blood to “stay ahead on him.”

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