CBRN exercise held at Ramstein

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Chad Padgett
  • USAFE News Service
RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany (USAFENS) --  Six four-person Bioenvironmental Engineering teams from eight U.S. Air Forces in Europe bases got a chance to hone their emergency response skills using state-of-the-art identification equipment here Sept. 25 in a week-long Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear challenge.

The exercise included real-world scenarios and relay challenges set up in abandoned base housing to help add a sense of realism to the challenge.

The Ramstein Air Base team won the technical knowledge and team relay awards, and the team from Royal Air Force Lakenheath, England, won the overall competition, but according to Col. Mark Ediger, USAFE command surgeon, the awards are a small portion of what team members walk away with.

“We see this exercise as a great way to encourage our people toward proficiency and reward them for doing a good job in training,” said Colonel Ediger. “There is a whole spectrum of threats that can be used against us at a deployed setting or at our installations, and when that situation arrives you don’t have time to pull out the books and figure out how to use equipment and how to make good decisions. You have to be ready to do that in advance.”

The exercises ranged from performing an Environmental Health Site Assessment of a proposed bare-base deployment location to investigating CBRN materials in simulated terrorist labs. Once the teams identified and quantified the CBRN threats, they had to go through the steps of conducting a health risk assessment and informing on scene commanders of the present dangers.

“One of the biggest aspects of this exercise is risk communication,” said Senior Master Sgt. Mark Booth, USAFE’s Bioenvironmental functional manager. “Bioenvironmental engineers are good at quantifying personnel exposures but they must be equally versed in relaying this information to wing commanders who need to make an informed decision.”

The exercise also helped the participants train on equipment they have not used before.

“Every scenario we learned about different equipment we have,” said Airman 1st Class Emily Schultz, 48th Aerospace Medical Squadron, RAF Lakenheath. “Since our job is so broad, we don’t make as much time as we really need for training. There is a piece of equipment here that I didn’t know anything about.”

The training not only helped the 24 bioenvironmental engineers at the exercise but many plan to take what they’ve learned and share it with the shops back at their bases.

“I will take these exercises back to Lajes so all of our people can gain hands-on experience with our advanced detection equipment,” said Capt. Leilani Bush, 65th Medical Operations Squadron, Lajes Field, Azores. “It’s really a matter of pulling out our equipment, running the scenario, and letting us run with it. You can’t just powerpoint this job.”

While CBRN detection is just part of what a bio environmental engineer is responsible for, it can sometimes be overlooked due to other duties, such as environmental and occupational health.

“A lot of folks don’t realize what capabilities sit at our Air Force bases,” said Maj. Phil Preen, Bioenvironmental Engineer deputy command. “We have tremendous CBRN detection and analysis capability. These exercises are good from a joint perspective in that we can demonstrate our capabilities and show we are ready if something goes wrong.”