Photo By 1st Sgt. Justin A. Naylor | U.S. Army Spc. Logan Edwards (left), an Olympia, Wash., native and medic and Spc....... read more read more
Subscribe
JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, Wash. – For the last decade and more, Soldiers have ventured into harm’s way in the Middle East and have faced rifle rounds, improvised explosive devices and a number of other objects meant to cause them harm. When a Soldier is wounded on the battlefield, there is no calling 911, but there is still a line of defense: medics.
To hone their life-saving skills, teams of medics with Company C, 296th Brigade Support Battalion, practiced triaging, treating and evacuating casualties during a training lane at Yakima Training Center, Wash., April 11.
“The purpose is to test all of our evacuation medics, not only on their skills of assessing and treating casualties in the battlefield, but to test their warrior tasks and drills in a stressed environment,” said 1st Lt. Zane Badgett, a Griffin, Georgia, native, and evacuation platoon leader with Company C.
The lane began with three wounded, unresponsive casualties wearing tags identifying the different injuries they had sustained. The medics had to quickly decide in which order these patients must be treated and evacuated.
They then continued on throughout the lane where they faced a number of other challenges including a Soldier with a brain injury and another with a gunshot wound. After treating these, they then had to call for an evacuation and load the casualty onto a medical transport vehicle.
“It’s kind of a fun thing to do,” said Spc. Logan Edwards, an Olympia, Washington, native, and medic with Company C. “It’s kind of a competition. You’re running and you don’t know what to expect next. Your platoon sergeant says, ‘well, you have another casualty’ and you treat that casualty and then you have another casualty and you have to treat and move that one and then between that they throw you for a loop with something else. They keep us on our toes.”
Although Edwards trains constantly to improve his medical skills, some of the challenges here were tough for him.
“The most difficult part for me was the triage, hands down,” Edwards said. “We may think we have it right, this person is immediate and they needed to be treated right now where as somebody else, a more senior medic, might say they have a few minutes. It’s not an exact science, so it can throw some medics for a loop.”
While the primary purpose of the lane was to test and improve the skills of the medics it also served to help establish teamwork among the medics.
“What I want them to get out of this is teamwork and confidence that they can do the basics brilliantly,” Badgett said. “Every job in the army is important, but the bottom line is, medics are going to save lives. If a fueler doesn’t do his job then a truck runs out of gas, but if a medic doesn’t do his job then somebody could die.”
This event was just one of the many training opportunities that Company C hosts to keep their medics skilled and ready for anything.
“We’ve got to stay on top of our skills every day,” Badgett said. “You can always be better. We would rather say that we spent all the time training for nothing than to have lost one person.”
For the medics who took part, the importance of this training and their job is not lost on them.
“I think medics provide more than the obvious of healthcare, they kind of provide that kind of extra almost like invisible shield,” Edwards said. “I feel like troops know they have their medic nearby, close, that no matter what they may get into they’re gonna be safe, because if they do get hurt they will have their medic right there, so it’s almost like an extra helmet.”
| Date Taken: | 04.14.2015 |
| Date Posted: | 04.14.2015 14:39 |
| Story ID: | 159962 |
| Location: | YAKIMA TRAINING CENTER, WA, US |
| Hometown: | GRIFFIN, GA, US |
| Hometown: | OLYMPIA, WA, US |
| Web Views: | 270 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
This work, Medics train to triage, treat, by 1SG Justin A. Naylor, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
No keywords found.
LEAVE A COMMENT