Afghanistan/Australien — Update on the condition of soldiers wounded in helicopter crash on 21 June 2010

Two of the sev­en Aus­tralian sol­diers who are receiv­ing med­ical treat­ment for wounds received in a heli­copter crash on Mon­day morn­ing have now been re-assessed as being in a seri­ous con­di­tion.

These two sol­diers were pre­vi­ous­ly assessed as being in a sat­is­fac­to­ry condition. 

This re-assess­ment results in the con­di­tion of the sev­en wound­ed sol­diers now being list­ed as three remain­ing in a very seri­ous con­di­tion, two now in a seri­ous con­di­tion and two remain­ing in a sat­is­fac­to­ry con­di­tion. The civil­ian inter­preter who was also wound­ed in the acci­dent also remains in a seri­ous condition. 

The sol­diers are suf­fer­ing from mul­ti­ple frac­tures, lac­er­a­tions, and crush injuries while one sol­dier also has a head injury. They are receiv­ing excel­lent med­ical care at the US mil­i­tary hos­pi­tal in the Land­stuhl Region­al Med­ical Cen­tre, Ger­many and remain the sub­ject of close mon­i­tor­ing and ongo­ing med­ical assessment. 

Due to the pro­tect­ed iden­ti­ty sta­tus of the wound­ed sol­diers and at the direct request of the fam­i­lies for pri­va­cy, there will be no media access facil­i­tat­ed in Landstuhl.An Aus­tralian Defence Force aero-med­ical team has com­menced assess­ment of the wound­ed sol­diers’ suit­abil­i­ty for repa­tri­a­tion to Aus­tralia. Due to com­plex­i­ty of the wounds sus­tained, it will be some time before the first of the sol­diers are med­ical­ly assessed as being able to travel. 

A US air crash inves­ti­ga­tion team has been tasked to review the cause of the inci­dent which involved an ISAF heli­copter crash­ing in north­ern Kan­da­har province with 15 per­son­nel onboard. A spe­cial­ist Aus­tralian Army air crash inves­ti­ga­tor is also assist­ing with the investigation. 

Three Aus­tralians and a US sol­dier were killed in the incident. 

The three Com­man­does killed in the inci­dent have com­menced their jour­ney to Australia. 

Media con­tact: Defence Media Liai­son: (02) 6127 1999 or 0408 498 664 

Press release
Min­is­te­r­i­al Sup­port and Pub­lic Affairs,
Depart­ment of Defence,
Can­ber­ra, Australia