Master Sergeant Andrew McArdell has acted in a variety of roles: husband, father, avid skier, climber and mountain biker.
He’s also acted as an emergency human surgery clamp and a transporter of soldiers and civilians clinging to the their lives.
McArdell hails from Denver, Colo., and serves in the United States Army Reserve. From April 2008 until January 2009, McArdell was a personnel sergeant at a combat hospital in Balad, Iraq; responsible for evacuating anything and everything off medvac aircraft as quickly as possible. Time isn’t exactly in abundance in those situations, according to McArdell.
It was Balad, Iraq, a town roughly 50 miles from the capital city of Baghdad.
He lifted.
He lifted, he treated, and he did so in swift fashion.
He continued to lift. And eventually, the lifting took its toll.
“There’s no ergonomically correct way to do it,” McArdell said.
“The temperatures took a toll on my body; the disc degeneration that was going on in my back, to go along with the bulging disc in my neck area, was causing some issues.”
The issues were serious.
McArdell’s L5 disc in his spine was bulging, were the C1 and C7 discs in his neck. He was medvaced to a hospital in Germany, where an emergency MRI was conducted.
The doctors said there was no way he could return to action not if he ever wanted to walk comfortably again. He had back and spine fusion surgery.
“I stayed there a little longer than I probably should have,” McArdell said.
Fast-forward to this past week in snow-packed Park City.
McArdell, along with a Community Based Warrior Transition Unit (CBWTU) muster an organized gathering for soldiers and their families from around the country have been enjoying the recreation around the Wasatch Back.
The program set in motion by the United States military in conjunction with U.S. Paralympics to provide physical and mental recreation and therapy to help soldiers become reintegrated into their specific communities following injury.
During the five-day muster, soldiers participated in adaptive recreation sports such as sled hockey, alpine skiing and even hippotherapy, an equine-based facilitated learning therapy.
The National Ability Center is working with the CBWTU for the first time this year and the feedback from those involved have been superb. The NAC has helped the CBWTU get this unique opportunity off the ground.
“We provide them the friendly confines of Park City to come and have some fun together and build up relationships,” said Ryan Jensen, marketing and outreach manager for the NAC.
The group planned on going to the Homestead Crater Thursday night, much to the delight of McArdell, who has visited Utah several times during his times with the Reserves and had always bookmarked the crater as a desired destination.
But anything is better than those 120-or-130-degree days in northern Iraq, when you were limited to about three to four hours of sleep every night.
“We didn’t get a lot of sleep,” McArdell deadpanned.
The easygoing master sergeant took a deep breath, thinking back to his time deployed.
“It took you out of your element and stuck you in an environment that you only read about,” McArdell said. “You got people coming off the aircraft, chest-compressing, and the doc says to you, ‘Here hold this. You’re the clamp.'”
Major Scott Reading of American Fork is the executive officer for the CBWTU based at Camp Williams.
This particular program is one of just nine nationwide, and Reading, who served in Iraq himself as part of the Utah National Guard, knows that no matter the experience, a soldier needs time to become comfortable once again to be comfortable in one’s own skin.
“For the combat veterans, transitioning back can be tough,” Reading said, “if you’re injured or not injured. This program is designed to bring the health care to the soldier, so they can be healed before they return to their civilian lives.”
This particular muster consists of active soldiers from 11 different states across the country (Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, New Mexico, South Dakota, and Wyoming).
To be eligible for the program, a soldier must have sustained an injury during overseas deployment or when mobilized stateside.
Those selected are handpicked after evaluation and treatment by health care officials at a major military facility.
“Getting out here and being active helps change your mindset,” Reading said. “Helps give you a break from the everyday stressers you may have. Going from a very active state to inactive state can lead to a depressive state. We’re teaching them that they are able again.”
Reading’s vision of his particular unit is coming to fruition before him and sees the future as the only thing that matters for soldiers battling physically and mentally to get back to that state of desired consolation.
“Hopefully this will help motivate them,” Reading said. “Hopefully they think, ‘What do I have in my community?’ This is what I can do.”
As soldiers skated their way across the ice in adaptive hockey sleds, they chirped, hooted, hollered and celebrated every time the puck slid into the net at the Park City Ice Arena.
“This here is only going to help us more,” said McArdell of the week’s events. “All of us have a goal here, which is to get healthier. Will we be 100 percent? That’s individual case by individual case. Eventually we’ll all be let go and all be out there retired.
“This helps. It all helps.”