By Pfc. Monica K. Smith
3rd Combat Aviation Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division Public Affairs Office
CAMP STRIKER, Iraq – The best way to learn any task involves actually performing it. However, when the task involves inserting a needle into the chest of another person, a training manual is a Soldier's best bet. Fortunately for the members of Company C, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Aviation Brigade, a medical evacuation company stationed at Camp Taji, a volunteer surfaced. His name is Fred.
"The real name for 'Fred' is Vital Sim," said Staff Sgt. Paul McQuown, Co. C, 2-3rd Avn. Regt. "It's the best realistic depiction of a person in trauma and medical scenarios."
Fred, a medical training aid dummy, allows medics to simulate various trauma situations. Fred can make sounds similar to coughing, breathing and even vomiting. He comes with multiple interchangeable parts. Some of the interchangeable parts allow the medics to apply a burnt face to simulate burn victims.
"This is the best feeling (dummy) I've used for replicating a real IV," said Staff Sgt. Robert Congdon, Co. C, 2-3rd Avn. Regt. "If you do the IV correctly you can see the flash and even turn the IV on."
Fred cost $8,000 for the dummy itself and accessories averaged around $700, said McQuown. The medics practice procedures and brush up on their skills, with help from their training buddy.
Formal classes are given once or twice a month by medics to ensure procedures not often used are still fresh in their minds.
"Skills are perishable if you don't get to practice," said 1st Sgt. Todd Burke, Co. C, 2-3rd Avn. Regt. "And for a new medic that just got here, they can fly with us and they see what happens but they don't get to do the procedures on the people we pick up because we're dealing with someone's life - It's a life or death situation. But they can practice it on Fred. It's just like another training scenario."
The Soldiers also built a model complete with two litters. The structure replicates the environment a medic would find on a Black Hawk and helps them practice working on patients in a confined space.
"All of the medics here at Taji use it, plus some of the crew chiefs and pilots that want to know more about what we do in the aircraft," said McQuown. "We get to use it anytime there is down time when everyone is not so busy.
McQuown says the Vital Sim is a great piece of equipment to MEDEVAC Soldiers.
"We conduct training on some of our equipment that you wouldn't be able to use on a real person unless they needed it," McQuown said. "No one is going to volunteer to have a King tube put down their throat, or have a trachea put in their neck. And as hard as we try, no one wants to get a needle decompression in their chest. As medics we still need to practice just like everyone else in the military. But sometimes we just can't try to use things for the first time on a person that is hoping you can save their life. That's where Fred is invaluable."
| Date Taken: | 02.04.2008 |
| Date Posted: | 02.04.2008 16:28 |
| Story ID: | 16022 |
| Location: | BAGHDAD, IQ |
| Web Views: | 296 |
| Downloads: | 257 |
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