Photo By Sgt. 1st Class James McGuire | Sgt. Elizabeth Whiting, of Cheyenne, Wyo., and Spc. Cabot Peden, of Douglas, Wyo.,...... read more read more
CAMP GUERNSEY JOINT TRAINING CENTER, Wyo. – As an August day heats up, the smell of Army training involving live organs and bones fills the air around the Regional Training Institute at Camp Guernsey Joint Training Center.
“They look kind of nasty and they kind of stink, and real trauma looks kind of nasty and it kind of stinks,” said RTI medical NCOES instructor Staff Sgt. Wayne Jones. His team uses select pig and cow parts to add realism to the culminating event of the annual five-day 68 Whiskey Sustainment Plan for Wyoming Army National Guard medical specialists.
For Pvt. Janet Fields, who graduated from Advance Individual Training at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, five months prior, it was like nothing she had encountered before.
“Having the live tissue was a little off-putting,” she said following an assessment of her patient whom, for training purposes, suffered a full evisceration of the abdomen. “It was a shocker, but I’ll remember this better than what I learned at school. Everything there was imagined.”
While evaluating the medics, Jones role-played as the victim of a hit and run accident. From group to group, he presented different and multiple injuries. Sometimes he was responsive, sometimes not, forcing the medic to be more diligent. Sometimes he seemed to be delirious other times calm. Regardless, it was up to the evaluated squad leader to assess the injuries verbally to Jones and the other trainers, commence treatment, and assign tasks to other members the squad.
A brief after action review after each scenario gave the soldiers areas to improve on for the next iteration.
Maj. Steven Gienapp, commander of the WYARNG’s Medical Command, said health care specialists are required to train and validate every year on a set of tables in order to maintain their job qualification. They get classroom and refresher training on essential clinical knowledge and it all culminates in the practical application of those skills at the end.
“We set up simulated combat injuries and the expectation is that the medic comes in and does the assessment and provides treatment appropriately,” he said. “We facilitate the training and get all the medics here together so that it develops a common operating picture as it relates to treatment and we provide a training resource for some of the units that may not have that internally.”
Across camp, at the Air Force shoot house, simulated firefights between the medics and opposing forces yielded casualties throughout the day. As fighting subsided, medics were evaluated for their quick and correct response in the chaotic situation.
Jones brought home why this training is important to all the medics.
“This isn’t like a fire mission, where if you get the wrong coordinates, you get to do a reset,” he explained. “In our world you don’t get a reset. If there’s a vehicle rolled on the north training area, they won’t have a proctor there guiding them through the steps. They have to get it done”
Gienapp said the entry-level soldiers are expected to be “generalists.”
“They have to be able to work in a field environment, like we’re simulating today,” he explained. “They also have to be able to transfer to a more clinical environment, which people are familiar with when they come in for the PHA each year.”
From actual organs and guts to enhance realism, Wyoming’s medics received the necessary certifications to continue to be ready, either in the clinics, or in the field.
| Date Taken: | 10.01.2014 |
| Date Posted: | 10.30.2014 15:53 |
| Story ID: | 146603 |
| Location: | CAMP GUERNSEY, WY, US |
| Web Views: | 76 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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