Medical Airmen train for emergency operations

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Tony R. Ritter
  • 86th Airlift Wing Public Affairs
RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany --  Exercise, exercise, exercise... more than 70 medical Airmen responded to Solkul Air Base, Turkey, immediately following a major earthquake in the region to provide emergency medical services and conduct humanitarian relief operations.

The location and scenario were created for the purpose of an exercise, but the medical professionals from the 86th Medical Group at Ramstein and the 52nd Medical Group from Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany, were training for an event that seems all too familiar given recent disasters in Haiti, Chile, Venezuela and Japan.

Members and cadre from the U.S. Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine at Brooks City-Base, Texas, deployed to Ramstein to facilitate the five-day exercise to train participants in the fundamentals of expeditionary medical support.

"The course is designed to teach and evaluate corps specific field situations as well as promote team performance, cohesion and cross-training of all team personnel," said Air Force retired Col.(Dr.)Robert Allen, USAFSAM instructor, "Its intent is to simulate a deployed, austere environment where the setup and packing out of a field expeditionary medical support compound would be necessary for wartime and humanitarian operations as well as field medicine and nursing."

The EMEDS course scenario included the stabilization of a hostile site, the set-up and take-down of a 6,400 square foot field hospital, followed by a comprehensive exercise complete with opposition forces, multiple injury victims and the looming urgency of a post-disaster environment.

The intensive course trained participants from more than a dozen medical specialties in establishing a variety of capabilities, ranging from surgery to dental care. Most primary medical capabilities necessary for initial patient stabilization were present in the field-based EMEDS compound.

"This course is supposed to be as intense as many humanitarian relief operations are in a bare-base environment," said Col. (Dr.) Carroll Palmore, exercise commander and participant. "We've had to stay focused on the main objective of patient stabilization for transport or airlift out. An EMEDS compound like this one is not designed for long-term care but rather for stabilizing the patient until we can get them the highest form of care possible elsewhere."

These caretakers from the 86th and 52nd rose to the challenges presented to them by the cadres.

"Everyone has taken the training seriously while staying very enthusiastic, hardworking and attentive," said Lt. Col. Caroline Samuolis, USAFSAM deputy division chief of Contingency Operations and lead for the 13-person cadre team.

Participants of all ranks took away from the course not only the unique experiences of a field exercise and multiple entries in their training records, but also the education that comes with working in a team setting.

"This was my first field-based exercise and I've found the hands-on training much more beneficial than traditional class-room instruction," said Airman 1st Class Tonitia Carr, 86th Medical Group medical administrator. "It's also been a great opportunity for everyone to pull together and learn from one another on a personal level."
Brig. Gen. Mark Dillion, 86th Airlift Wing commander stressed the importance of the concepts enforced in this training during a site visit.

"In the course of doing our jobs, we're not always sure where we will go or exactly what we will be called upon to do," the general said. "This is the reason that readiness training like this is so important, preparing us for a variety of environments and scenarios."

The course culminated with a completion ceremony, sending the medical professionals back to their respective jobs with a few new tools in their toolbox and a variety of skills critical to the expeditionary Airman.