30th Heavy Brigade Combat Team

Story by Pfc. Kelly LeCompte

BAGHDAD – In support of the Iraqi Security Agreement, Iraqi security forces in Baghdad are learning the skills they need to act autonomously, as U.S. forces continue to prepare their Iraqi partners to stand on their own.

Medics from 252nd Combined Arms Battalion, 30th Heavy Brigade Combat Team, are sharing the basic medical skills used in treating traumatic injuries with medics from the 5th Iraqi Federal Police Brigade during a course that runs through, Nov. 5, at Forward Operating Base Falcon.

"We've learned how to treat bleeding and fractures, and today we're learning how to treat burns," said FP officer Aboot Adnan Abood, during one of the classes.

Medics have learned are how to assess casualties and basic ways to stabilize patients before transporting them to a hospital by controlling bleeding, wrapping injuries, and treating first, second and third degree burns.

"What we're trying to get these guys to do is be self-sufficient," said Sgt. John Montgomery, the battalion's medical training non-commissioned officer.

Montgomery, from Fayetteville, N.C., said some of the most common situations their Iraqi partners encounter involve injuries sustained in car crashes and explosions from roadside bombs, and those are the types of situations the training focused on the most.

"That's the kind of stuff they're going to see," Montgomery said." What we're trying to do is give them the type of basic medical skills ... to be more effective in responding to [traumatic] types of injuries."

Abood, a new medic said the class at FOB Falcon was his first medical training. He said he feels prepared to do the job because of the training.

"I like it," Abood said. "If we have an emergency anytime, we learn how to react. If there's an accident, for example, I'm ready always to carry stuff and get the equipment and go and treat the bleeding and take them to the hospital."

The training also helped reinforce some of these principles for FP officer Moshtag Ali.
Ali has attended first-responder training before and said he enjoyed the class; continuing to learn new things from the U.S. Soldiers.

"It's a good class," Ali said. "We have learned a lot and we've benefitted a lot from it."

The class involved a lecture portion and a hands-on portion, in which students practice the skills on a training dummy.

"The explanation is my favorite," Ali said. "It's more stories and about what can help [the patients] more."

The Iraqis are not the only ones learning from the class. This was the first time Melvin instructed a class to Iraqi medics, and said he felt like he was continuing his learning through his teaching.

"When you teach, you learn," Melvin said. "This is helping me too. I'm benefitting from their benefit also ... and learning from them as I teach."

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