Photo By Cpl. Khoa Pelczar | A doctor with 1st Medical Battalion, 1st Marine Logistics Group, performs continuous...... read more read more
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MARINE CORPS BASE CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. – “Marine, do you know your name? Do you know where you are,” the corpsman asked with no response. “It’s OK, we’re here to take care of you.”
Surgeons, doctors, nurses and corpsmen with 1st Medical Battalion, 1st Marine Logistics Group, participated in a field training exercise here, Jan. 26.
“The focus of this training event is to successfully provide medical support to Marines and sailors in the field environment,” said Cmdr. Tuan Hoang, surgeon, officer in charge of field surgical team, 1st Med. Bn. “Basically we’re putting the team together and seeing how they work under pressure while operating the Shock Trauma Platoon and the Forward Resuscitative Surgical System.”
As part of the training, several waves of simulated casualties continuously arrived on site and required immediate treatment, explained Hoang, 42, from Chula Vista, Calif. Medical staffs were to identify the more critical cases to provide immediate response in the FRSS, as well as to divide the team properly to treat everyone.
“The team came together tremendously,” Hoang said. “They’re working as a team like a well oiled machine.”
To these men and women, looking for wounds and treating patients has become second nature as they’ve provided medical care to service members so often, explained Petty Officer 3rd Class Jared Nixon, corpsman, 1st Med. Bn.
As he observed his fellow caretakers providing aid to the simulated casualties while playing the role of a casualty himself, Nixon, 22, from Santa Cruz, Calif., said the stressful training environment is exactly what they needed to prepare for the upcoming deployment.
“It’s no surprise that they know how to treat the patients. The training simulates stress and that’s the most important part of our job at this point,” said Nixon. “If we learn how to deal with that stress now, we’ll be much more successful in theater as nothing will come as a surprise to us.”
Nixon not only helped his fellow service members train for deployment, he said he had also learned an important lesson.
“As I was laying there on the opposite side of the operating table, I learned how scary it would be,” he said. “Coming into a situation such as this where you have no control of where your life was going to go, and you’re completely depending on somebody else, it’s a scary thing. Knowing that these corpsmen were given great training and so full of confidence really helps put that feeling at ease. So I hope that a lot of the Marines here can take confidence out of this training as well, knowing that their corpsmen are doing a great job because this is a very realistic simulation.”
Hoang was thrilled with the result of the training exercise.
“I’m impressed with the effort that everyone put forth during this training exercise,” Hoang said. “It is our job and our duty to take care of these guys and bring them home. Nothing can even come close to the feelings I get when my old patients come up to thank me and hug me. It is so great to see them back up and walking around again.”
| Date Taken: | 01.26.2012 |
| Date Posted: | 02.02.2012 19:15 |
| Story ID: | 83256 |
| Location: | CAMP PENDLETON, CA, US |
| Web Views: | 315 |
| Downloads: | 2 |
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