Photo By Ardian Nrecaj | Soldiers from Multinational Battle Group-East completed a validation course for the...... read more read more
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CAMP BONDSTEEL, Kosovo - Five inches of snow on the ground, freezing temperatures and a northern wind did not stop four Soldiers of Multinational Battle Group-East to train for the Expert Field Medical Badge validation course at Camp Bondsteel, Kosovo, March 6, before they head to Grafenwoehr, Germany for the EFMB competition.
Any medical service in the U.S. Army can compete for EFMB, but less than one percent of Soldiers have the badge.
Sgt. 1st Class Critt Petersen, Task Force Medical first sergeant, and an EFMB holder, explained that the competition is very strenuous, with a lot of memorization, and a lot of margins for error.
“We are doing an EFMB validation to prepare four candidates for the competition,” said Petersen. “This is just our way of getting them to knock a dust out of their medical skills before they get into actual competition. Today we ran them through series that we have combined as the most critical task that we have identified as high stress ones and low percentage of passing, so we have put those in one culminating lane.”
“We were able to test them from weapons malfunctions, move under direct fire, care under fire, tactical combat casualty care, loading the ambulance, extract the patient from a vehicle accident, and call the medical evacuation helicopter to pick up the patient,” added Petersen.
Capt. Mark Mateja, a physical therapist with Task Force Medical, and one of the four Soldiers that took part in the training explained that they combined the medical lane and warrior task lane together to give them a bigger scope during training.
“The medical lane was the hardest,” said Mateja. “It was very difficult because there are very precise things you have to do; you are dealing with multiple patients and multiple injury types. When you have to bounce back and forth between the different injured patients, making sure you do not miss anything, making sure you are treating the right thing, it is definitely a challenge.”
Petersen emphasized the importance of this type of training for the U.S. Army.
“Combat medics are the second line of defense in casualty treatment, the first line is the self aid – buddy aid, and then the combat medic comes,” said Petersen. “They are the ones who provide that life saving measure before they get to the hospital, so all of these skills are what sustains life.”
“If we do not do these skills right, people do not make it to the hospital,” added Petersen. “This type of training sustains all of our medical skills. If we are not doing these on a quarterly, weekly and daily base, the skills get rusty.”
Petersen said the Soldiers will head to Grafenwoehr, Germany later this month and he expects good outcome from the EFMB competition in Germany.
| Date Taken: | 03.06.2015 |
| Date Posted: | 03.13.2015 07:23 |
| Story ID: | 156905 |
| Location: | CAMP BONDSTEEL, ZZ |
| Hometown: | SAN ANTONIO, TX, US |
| Web Views: | 167 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Soldiers Train for Expert Field Medical Badge, by Ardian Nrecaj, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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