According to reports by Navideshahed which quoted Fars News Agencey, use of chemical weapons in the wars has been one of the tragic events of the rational human, a thing which has been more obvious with the advancements in the technology than the remote past. The history of widely and formally using of the weapons of mass destruction goes back to the Iran-Iraq war. During eight years of the Sacred Defence the Iraqi Baath Party Regime has used unconventional and chemical weapons against Iran several times to make reality the sinister dream that its Western and Eastern lords had dreamed of, afflicting thousands of the innocent children, women and the elderly for years.
Visit to a man whom the death rain of Saddam could not rub him of his resistanceI have gone to visit a man whom the death rain of Saddam could not rub him of his resistance. I escape the disturbance and smoke of the street and welcome the tranquil environment of the hospital. I do not understand why, unconsciously, and suddenly, the nostalgia of Dokuheh renews itself in me. It is perhaps I want to visit a chemical weapons victim. Only half an hour is to the end of visiting hours and I should be in the 8th floor soon. In the elevator, I see children of the war chemical disabled who have come to visit their fathers.
In the hall of the 7th floor, I ask for the room where Gholam Hashemi is a guest of, from one of the nurses. She shows me the left hand of the hall, room number 814.
The door is closed. I knock the door twice and enter. A dark face, grey hairs, innocent eyes, a deep smile and cracked and dry lips, is the first image shaping in the frame of my eyes. He seems patient and calm. With a heart, as great as the sea and clothes as blue as sky he has come to fight the disease. Once the hope of a nation, now all his hope is the shakes of oxygen bulbs beside his bed.
His voice was dull. I did not want him to talk too much, but I was embarrassed to ask him to talk about himself. He began in this way: ‘my name isGholam Hashemi, born in 1954. I married in 1980. Since then I have been living in Karaj. I have 3 sons and 2 girls. Before my injuries, I was working in the Iran Khodro car making factory. 3 years of my life has been passed in hospital. Since 1991, for some 10 years, I was working as photographer, but as the result of injuries, I was no longer able to go on my job, so I abandoned it and did business for a time’.
The most memorable New Year of 1983 and 1986
He related his way of being war invalid: ‘I was suffered from chemicals twice in the Sacred Defence years. The first time in March, 18th, 1983 during the Kheibar Operation in Majnun Island and the second time, in March, 24th, 1986 in Fav. No one was aware of my first suffering; even my family did not know that.
In the Fav, I was responsible for organizing the public helps to the fronts. As the result of being exposed to mustard gas, my injury was critical. All my body was burnt, I lost both my eyes. In that rainy day, my eyes were closed during my transfer to hospital. After the event, he had recovered half of his daily normal life only after 3 to 4 years, while all burden of life was on my own shoulders’.
I experienced near-suffocation when I washed my face
‘Between 1995 and 1996 my bodily conditions became worse, such that when washing my face, I experienced near suffocation, though the feeling is still with me after the years’, he said.
In the hospital the families of the chemical injured were given a prescription that made them to wander in the streets of Tehran to find aminophylline. The spectacle was very sad and the sight of their wandering was disappointing. I was looking for mentioning that to one of the officials. On coincidence, a number of the officials were coming to Sasan Hospital to visit the patients for the Day of the War Injured Heroes. I told to them that it was not necessary to say their warm feelings for the Day. Instead, they should not permit the families of the chemical injured wander in the streets in search of the prescription. Fortunately, one official demanded that no hospital official can send the chemical injured families to streets since then.
A culpa levis which knocked Hashemi unconscious
In the February, 24th, the day when Ahmad Yuzumcu the secretary general of the organization of the prevention of chemical weapons visited the chemical injured of Iran in the Baghiatellah and Sasan Hospitals during his 1-day visit to Iran, an incident happened for Hashemi, which would kill him. He related the event: ‘whenYuzumcu came to our room, we talked to him about the sufferings and the problems of the chemical injured. After his leave, without any need, one of the nurses attached Angiocath. Then we wanted nurses to inject antibiotics to me and my fellow chemical injured Salimian. With the injection of anti-biotic to me, I felt that all my body burning. Apparently my hands became hysteric and this prevented the injection of antibiotics to Salimian and after sometime, I was unconscious. Salimian was beside me that time. He said that after the injection I had trembled and became unconscious’. ‘For minutes my pulses faded away. They did resuscitation operation, as the result of which my rib suffered a lot. After days, I recovered, but I was numb and forgetful. Now I had to be hospitalized for 8 weeks to treat my ribs’, he added.
I myself, opted to go to war, the patience for being invalid is rejoicing for me
He has sit on the bed beside me and sometimes he pushes eyelids together. I ask for his eyes condition and he says that I see the things rather blurred. The doctors have demanded that I do surgery on my eyes due to chemical injures, but for now it is ruled out. He suffers, but is patient. The patience has wrecked a deep footprint on his face. He himself attributes this patience to his own conscious choice and takes pride on it, saying that ‘ when I wanted to go to Fav, I was said that there is little chance of coming back, but I wanted to go anyway, and now I am pride of my injures that are memorials of the Sacred Defence’.
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