More than 200 soldiers from Fort Campbell have returned from a deployment to New York City.
They spent more than a month at the Javits New York Medical Station caring for more than a thousand COVID-19 patients in the convention center.
The plan had been use the convention center as an overflow for local hospitals to send non-COVID patients, but it turned out that there weren’t that many non-COVID patients to treat. So the field hospital began treating patients with COVID-19.
“The workload was abundant, the hours were often long, and the challenges were many, but through it all our soldiers maintained their professionalism and drive to provide the absolute best care possible,” said Col. Brandon Pretlow, commander of the 531st Hospital Center.
Some members of the 531st stayed behind in New York providing support for other military medical units.
The returning service members will now undergo a precautionary quarantine. An official “welcome home” ceremony is being planned for the near future.
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