A career in combat medicine

Photo By Sgt. Marcus Floyd | Soldiers with Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment, 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, demonstrate first aide in a combat zone June 1, 2015, in Czaplinek, Poland for career day. The Soldiers are participating in Atlantic Resolve, an ongoing multinational partnership focused on joint training and security cooperation between NATO allies, whose mission is the continued peace and stability of Europe. (U.S. Army photo by Spc. Marcus Floyd, 13th Public Affairs Detachment)  

CZAPLINEK, POLAND

06.01.2015

Story by Spc. Marcus Floyd 

7th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment

CAMP KONOTOP, Poland — For one secondary school in Czaplinek, Poland, career day is held a little differently. Rather than having students trudge through the cafeteria and randomly selecting booths where job representatives anxiously await questions, this technical school put on a show.

Throughout the day, several groups of healthcare professionals showed their skills by healing willing participants' fake injuries.

Amongst those professionals was the medical staff of Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment, 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, who participated in career day June 1, 2015 in Czaplinek, Poland.

“We came to the community to teach the ways the American Army treats wounded on the battlefield. It's good, they seem very receptive,” said Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Banzet, a healthcare specialist with HHC, 2nd Bn., 7th Inf. Reg., 1st ABCT, 3rd Inf. Div. “They've welcomed us with open arms.”

During their demonstration, the Soldiers applied basic combat care techniques for a “wounded” Soldier. They showed the students how to properly apply a tourniquet, how to treat a punctured lung, administer saline intravenously, apply a nasopharyngeal airway and several other life-saving skills.

Having the career day cater towards healthcare is one part of how the school teaches first aid.

Normally, a paramedic visits the school regularly and teaches first aid. Upon completing the course the students are then tasked with teaching younger students as well.

“In Poland, it is a law, that when somebody has a problem you are obliged to help,” said Alicja Glwojno, an English teacher at the school. “So everybody is supposed to know, but in Poland there is a lack of this knowledge.”

In addition to adding to their knowledge of first aid, the Soldiers were invited to career day because the American Army is a good example of discipline and how, with hard work, you can achieve your goals, she said.

“Anything we can do to spread the word on how the Army treats its patients is good stuff,” Banzet said. “We're here to help our NATO allies.”

• Date Taken: 06.01.2015
• Date Posted: 06.01.2015 14:49
• Story ID: 165119
• Location: CZAPLINEK, PL
• Hometown: FORT STEWART, GA, US