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Caring for amputees
關愛截肢人士
Life on a limb
假肢上的生活
A growing number of amputees is a sign of medical progress
越來越多截肢者的出現體現了醫療水平的進步
A GRISLY photo shows a soldier lying injured, the snow around him steeped in blood. Both his legs have been blown off. The blood is fake. His legs, however, really are missing. The picture is from a training exercise run by Amputees in Action, an agency for actors who have lost arms or legs. It provides limbless people to train the armed forces and the emergency services as they learn how better to deal with injuries sustained in the midst of fighting or accidents. Such training, along with improvements in care back home, mean that those who do suffer grievous injuries on the battlefield are more likely to survive.
一張令人扼腕的照片為我們展示了這樣一幅畫面：一名負傷的士兵倒在被鮮血浸透的雪地中，紛飛的戰火令他失去了雙腿。事實上，照片中的血是假，而那位士兵確實是失去了雙腿。這張圖片來源于由“截肢者在行動”的培訓機構所組織的一次表演訓練，這家機構旨在為失去雙臂或雙腿的特型演員提供中介服務。該機構為軍隊提供殘疾演員，用以訓練士兵以及教授急救措施，從而使他們習得在戰斗或意外中如何處理其所受到的傷害。這樣的培訓再配以家中的精心照料，將意味著那些在戰爭中經受到嚴重創傷的人，將更有機會活下來。
Of the 12,000-odd amputees reckoned to have come back to Britain from the second world war, almost none had lost three limbs, says Jerome Church of BLESMA (formerly the British Limbless Ex-Service Men's Association). Soldiers with such injuries died in combat. Even five years ago, they probably would not have survived such trauma. Today, it is normal to do so. That is a mark of medical improvements on and off the battlefield, says Keith Porter, a surgeon and professor of clinical traumatology at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham. Every year, people are surviving bigger injuries, says Professor Porter, and the rate of improvement is rapid. The treatments provided today do not appear in existing manuals: “We are writing the textbooks of the future.”
為英國截肢退伍軍人協會（BLESMA）效力的杰羅姆?切奇說，自二戰以來，已約有12000余名截肢者回到英國，而他們之中很少有失去三肢或以上的人，因為通常受到這樣等級外傷的士兵，他們通常面臨的就是死亡，甚至在五年前，受到這種程度外傷的人也很少能夠活下來。但是在現如今，對于這類人來說，活下來是一件再正常不過的事情。基斯·波特是一名在伯明翰伊麗莎白女王醫院工作的外科醫生，并且是一名專攻臨床創傷的教授。波特教授說，“這種情況無論是在戰場上或日常生活中，都是醫療體系進步的標志。人們能夠經受住越來越嚴重的外傷并存活下來，最后得到改善的幾率也在逐年迅速攀升。今天我們所實現的治療方法在現存的資料或手冊中卻難覓蹤跡。”波特博士同時表示，“我們正在編纂相關教科書為未來的醫療事業提供幫助。”
Overall, those fighting Britain's wars make up a small proportion of the 5,000 or so major-limb amputations carried out in Britain each year, mostly as a result of diseases such as diabetes. But the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq have led to a spike in the numbers of soldiers who have lost limbs. When Mr Church took over as chief executive of BLESMA in 2000, he assumed it was a fading organisation. Most members were elderly veterans of the second world war. Since then, its ranks have swelled by about 300. In 2006-09, 54 combatants sustained partial or complete removals of a limb as a result of injuries in Afghanistan. In 2009-12 the number rose again to 192, almost half of them multiple amputations.
綜上所述，每年這些在英國戰爭中受傷而截肢的人，僅占了英國全年五千名截肢者中很小的一部分，而其他多數為諸如糖尿病之類的疾病所致。但是阿富汗與伊拉克之間的沖突戰爭卻使很多戰場上的士兵失去了他們的四肢。當切奇先生在2000年出任英國截肢退伍軍人協會（BLESMA）的首席執行官時，他覺得該組織毫無希望可言，而且其中多數成員是經歷過二戰的退伍老兵。在阿富汗戰爭以及伊拉克戰爭爆發后，組織人數激增至300人，在2006—2009年這三年間，阿富汗戰役中共有54名戰士進行了局部或全部的截肢，在接下來的2009—2012年間，這一數據已增加至192，近乎半數人接受了多處截肢。
Cuts to defence spending (8% in real terms by 2015) have had little impact on services for those afflicted. In February the government announced it would spend an extra ￡6.5m on advanced prosthetics for them. Armed with such technology, many can pursue active lives. Those working for Amputees in Action, for instance, act in mainstream films and TV programmes as well as training exercises. John Pickup, the agency's founder, says it can be difficult to attract veterans because the Paralympic team is so determined to get soldiers, sailors and airmen (and women) who have lost arms or legs to join its athletes. That's welcome competition.
削減國防開支（預計至2015年將會下調8%）實際上并不會對這些截肢者的醫療服務造成影響，因為在今年二月政府已經宣布，將會投入額外的6,500,000歐元為他們提供先進的假肢，通過醫療科技的幫助，他們得以繼續自由行動和生活。“截肢者在行動”公司為截肢者提供諸如在主流電影或電視節目中演出的機會，當然還有培訓練習。作為機構創始人，約翰·皮卡表示，能夠招收到老兵很不容易，因為殘奧會代表隊十分渴望那些失去手臂或腿的士兵，海員以及飛行員加入到他們的運動員行列中，不得不說，這是一場皮卡先生的公司與國家隊之間的人才競爭之戰。譯者：尤熠 校對：沈曉旭
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