Nurse Anesthetist recalls service in Afghanistan

After watching the World Trade Center attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, Tom Larson was inspired to use his training as a registered nurse to serve the country. Larson was still in nursing school then.

"I really wanted to join the infantry and go fight the war," he said. "At that point, I had a baby at home and thought it would just be better for me to finish nursing school."

He joined the U.S. Army Reserves as soon as he graduated in 2003. Larson, now 42, returned at the beginning of April from his second deployment. He served 100 days as captain of the Columbus, Ohio-based 629th Forward Surgical Team on a small combat outpost in the Hindu Kush mountains in northeast Afghanistan.

Upon returning to Hastings, Larson resumed his job as a certified registered nurse anesthetist.

Larson has lived in Hastings about two years with his wife, Amy, and children, Chloe, 13, and Jack, 11.

"I am proud of my husband to serve our country," Amy wrote in an emailed response to questions. "This is the least we could do for the soldiers who are fighting for our freedom.

"This is not the first time Tom has been deployed; his first deployment was in Germany for an entire year. I have to say three months is quite a bit easier on our family."

The Larsons moved to Hastings after Larson received his CRNA degree from Mount Marty College in Yankton, S.D.

"I found that I loved that kind of work," he said of serving in the U.S. Army Reserves. "I think working in the military is a good group of people for me to work for. It's a good patient group. Your patients are soldiers, and I enjoy working with them."

Serving in such an austere location as the mountains of Afghanistan posed unique challenges for Larson and other members of his team.

Everything ran on generator power. Generator failure was not uncommon.

"We're good at doing surgery, but we're not good at maintaining or fixing generators," he said. "We had all this good stuff, but we also had to develop a plan to do surgery without electricity."

That plan included the use of headlamps instead of lights, and intravenous medications instead of other forms of pain management medication.

Weather was also an issue. Where Larson was stationed, temperatures sometimes dipped into the 20s and snowfall could amount to 10 inches.

All of the surgeries occurred in tents. He took a photo of the operating room thermometer once when it showed the area to be 40 degrees.

"It's important to have warm facilities with trauma," he said. "Cold trauma bays kill patients because of a number of issues. So what you try to do is keep it really warm and hot. We had a hard time doing that."

The weather of northeast Afghanistan might have made surgery tough, but as a native of Watertown, S.D., it was nothing like Larson was used to.

"The guys I was with thought it was miserable," he said. "I thought it was actually pretty mild, but I'm from northeast South Dakota."

When Larson joined the Army, he was a registered nurse. He went into nursing because he wanted to become a nurse anesthetist.

"The problem was the war broke out," he said. "I really wanted to get involved with the military, go overseas and participate."

Growing up, Larson would accompany his father, a surgeon, to the hospital. When Larson was old enough, he was allowed to see what was happening in the operating room.


"He wanted me to be a surgeon, but what I found was the view was a lot better from the head of the table, and that's where anesthesia is at," he said. The anesthetists who worked with his father convinced Larson that's what he should do with his life.


"I got to see how they managed the airways with these ventilators and these fancy tubes and all these medicines," he said. "I thought it was more fascinating than what was happening on the other side of the curtain."