The Rockbridge Partnership :: Engineering Economic Prosperity

Former Lexington Surgeon’s Operating Room is a
Bea Maurer Rapid Deploying Shelter in Iraq

By Patte Wood
Rockbridge Weekly Reporter

If you have been watching CNN, you might have seen former Lexington surgeon Rob Hinks operating on an Iraqi soldier who had been shot in the stomach. Hinks is serving as Asst. Commander for the Forward Resuscitating Surgical Unit (known as MASH during the Korean War). Not only does Hinks have a local connection, but the state of the art operating room he is using is also of local original.

Hinks was operating in a Bea Maurer Rapid Deploying Base-X Shelter outfitted as a state of the art operating facility called a Forward Resuscitating Surgical Suite (FRSS). The Suite was designed as part of a project with the Navy Medical Program within the Marine Corps Systems Command. The first ones were shipped in Spring of 2001 and the bigger orders were shipped in September and October of 2002. The shelters were outfitted for deployment at Camp Pendleton and Camp Lejeune. According to Bea Maurer Marine liaison Mike Stolarz, there are currently 30 suites available with 12 of them currently in the combat theater in Iraq.

The operating facility is made up of two 13 x 25 foot shelters with one serving as post and pre-op and the other as surgery. It is self-sufficient with its own generator, blood refrigerator, and other medical equipment. The facility holds an 8 person team of medical personnel that can set up the tent in 40 minutes. It fits in two HUMVEE vehicles and can also be transported in one CH53 helicopter along with the medical team.

On Tuesday afternoon at 2 p.m., Stolarz heard from the 1st Marine Battalion, the 2nd Marine Battalion and the 2nd Light Armored Reconnaissance Unit (LARU) in Iraq that the Base-X Self-Deploying Shelters are holding up well in the 78 mph winds of the a huge sandstorm. Earlier, company owner Bea Maurer remarked that she was anxious to hear back from the field on how well the units would stand up to the winds.

If they have staked them down properly, she commented, they should hold up ok. ”Its really exciting to hear back from the front that the shelters are working well,“ she says. Stolarz says that the units are designed for level II surgical capability, or field surgery. Level I consists of battalion aid stations at the front and Level III are large military hospitals such as the one in Germany. “They fill in the gap between the battalion aid stations & hospitals,” explained Stolarz, It has been found that if a soldier is stabilized and treated during the golden hour of being wounded, chances for survival go up dramatically. The self-deploying shelters are saving lives on the battlefield.

Surgical Tent Manufactured Here...

Pictured above is a "Forward Resuscitative Surgical Suite," which is manufactured at the Fairfield Bea Maurer facility. (This photo was taken at Camp Pendleton during a training exercise.) (Bea Maurer photo)

Bea Maurer Base-X shelters in different configurations are also being used by the 101st Airborne Division as tactical operational centers; by the Navy Fleet Hospital; by the 1st Marine Expeditionary Forces as command and control centers; by the 1st Marine Division as forward command and control centers, and to house Air Defense battery equipment.

Peyton Winfree of Bea Maurer, Inc. says that they are currently shipping shelters to Camp Doha, Kuwait at least twice a week. “We are pretty busy,” says Bea Maurer. We are constantly developing new products while getting these out the door. One product currently being developed is a chemical/biological liner for the shelters. These are being designed for the Soldier Biological and Chemical Command (SBCCOM) at the Army Research Center in Natick, Massachusetts. The liner uses a pressurizing system ensuring that air inside the tent will be more pressurized than the air outside. Soldiers will enter through an air-locked doorway.

Bea Maurer, Inc. is located in Fairfield, Virginia and currently employs 92 people. Information on the

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