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By Petty Officer 3rd Class Jake Berenguer
SAN DIEGO – Naval Branch Health Clinic Naval Air Facility El Centro participated in a mass casualty drill simulating an aircraft mishap, which provided first hand training in disaster response for medical staff. Feb.17.
Under the supervision of training team leaders and supervisors from Navy Region Southwest, the medical staff is evaluated on response time, knowledge and medical skill during the mass casualty drill.
“NBHC NAF El Centro performs an annual mass casualty drill just before the air show every year. Working near the flight line it is important to be prepared for incidents such as this,” said Lt. Stephanie N. Huhn, NBHC NAF El Centro Senior Medical Officer. “Presenting a situation where a patient is laying on the ground, forces corpsmen to put all the training they have received into action.”
NAF El Centro has an incident response plan to be put into action in the event of a disaster event such as an aircraft mishap. The fast action response team consists of an independent duty corpsman and two junior corpsmen with triage training. They quickly report to the accident site and then call the emergency center to request further medical supplies and support.
The NBHC corpsmen are normally trained to react to casualty scenarios through audio and visual training methods. Because of the volume of patients at the clinic and the heavy usage of the flight line, in field training is hard to incorporate into daily tasks in the clinic and to coordinate with the flight schedule.
“Hands-on training is the best form of training. It is one thing to show someone a piece of medical gear and say this is how you use it. It’s quite another to actually put it to use in a casualty scenario,” said Petty Officer 1st Class Glenn A. Keefer, Leading Petty Officer for NBHC NAF El Centro. “Those that are more experienced can use their expertise in a hands-on scenario to show the junior corpsmen the correct responses to the current casualty situation.”
“These are corpsmen are talented young medical professionals. To help their talent grow, we need to get their hands dirty in these types of scenarios before they meet actual casualty situations. This basewide drill is a great opportunity to practice our communication with the base fire department and the drill gives us a chance to work together,” said Huhn.
Mass casualty training drills allow participants to prepare to provide the services required in disaster situations.
“I really feel that the drill helped me feel prepared. We certainly hope nothing bad will happen, but as the air show approaches it is always in the back of our minds that something could happen,” said NBHC NAF El Centro Petty Officer 3rd Class Amanda J. Robert. “Because of training such as this, we can feel secure in the fact that we covered a similar scenario in training and we are prepared to handle whatever incidents may unfold.”
Due to its location and year-round mild climate NAF El Centro is an ideal location for Naval Aviation training. NAF El Centro provides base support to both U.S. Military and Allied Force squadrons by maintaining target ranges for weapon and combat training exercises.
The drill coincides with NAF El Centro’s annual air show scheduled for Mar. 13, where many pilots will be performing complex flight maneuvers.
For more information regarding NAF El Centro visit: http://www.cnic.navy.mil/elcentro/index.htm.
| Date Taken: | 02.17.2010 |
| Date Posted: | 07.28.2010 13:52 |
| Story ID: | 53560 |
| Location: | SAN DIEGO, CA, US |
| Web Views: | 159 |
| Downloads: | 59 |
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