MRF-D Corpsman prepare for Koolendong with Remote Pre-Hospital Trauma and Disaster Course

Photo By Sgt. Scott Reel | Corpsmen and the Battalion Surgeon with 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, Marine Rotational Force—Darwin, work to remove a patient from a crashed vehicle during a Remote Pre-Hospital Trauma and Disaster Course, here, July 31, 2014. The MRF-D personnel worked alongside Australian emergency room nurses and doctors that combined different skills and perspectives of medicine. The Marines with MRF-D will conduct independent and bilateral training with the Australian Defence Force aboard existing ADF facilities during the six-month rotation.  

KATHERINE, NT, AUSTRALIA

08.01.2014

Story by Cpl. Scott Reel 

Marine Rotational Force - Darwin

KATHERINE, Northern Territory, Australia—Corpsmen and the Battalion Surgeon with 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, Marine Rotational Force—Darwin, refine their skills before Exercise Koolendong 2014 with the Remote Pre-Hospital Trauma and Disaster Course, here, July 31, 2014. The MRF-D personnel worked alongside Australian emergency room nurses and doctors that combined different skills and perspectives of medicine.

The course instills in its participants better scene safety and assessment for remote health workers responding to trauma on the remote roadside. They are taught how to protect themselves and their patients from other road users, as well as skills used by paramedics and fire-men in stabilizing a vehicle and extracting patients from wreckage when they are on their own.

Lt. Oleg Balter, battalion surgeon with 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, MRF-D, said the course prepared him and his Sailors for any possible accident that could occur during a convoy.

“I think as far as real world training goes, this application with these vehicles here that are crashed is very beneficial for anyone that hasn’t seen anything like this,” Balter said.

Petty Officer 2nd Class William Hoff, corpsman with 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, MRF-D, said the knowledge of the Australian healthcare professionals is very beneficial to the Corpsman.

“The importance of this is astronomical,” Hoff said. “This is a great opportunity to get out here and learn from a different perspective than we have in the past. These doctors and nurses out here are teaching us a lot of advanced training.”

Over the two day course, the groups learn the important necessary steps to keep a trauma patient alive in a remote area and stabilize them during the time it takes to transport them to a hospital.

“The most challenging and the most beneficial will be the car extraction, because we’ll have a chance to get hands on in an environment that we really don’t get a lot of opportunities to deal with patient care in,” Hoff said. “There’s going to be tight spaces and hazards. It’s going to be a challenge we can learn a lot from.”

The course prepares the corpsman with MRF-D for a variety of situations that could occur during Exercise Koolendong 2014, taking place in Bradshaw Training Area, a remote location south of Darwin.

“I think it’s very beneficial for the Sailors,” Balter said. “The guys that came out here are very motivated. They are refreshing all the trauma that they’ve done. We did a lot of training back in California and while we’ve been here, and I look forward to doing more in Koolendong.”

• Date Taken: 08.01.2014
• Date Posted: 07.31.2014 20:35
• Story ID: 137944
• Location: KATHERINE, NT, AU