FORT MCCOY, Wis. - "Man down, man down!"
A Soldier from Critical Response Team 1, 46th Chemical Company, 22nd Chemical Battalion, discovers a simulated casualty lying on the ground in full Mission Oriented Protective Posture (MOPP). Without knowing whether he had been involved in a chemical attack, the Soldier quickly decides he will need to be evacuated from the area and decontaminated before he can be treated by medical personnel.
A four-man casualty rescue team jogs toward the simulated casualty, a litter suspended between them. This response team is among the first of its kind: it is made up of not just one service, but two. Air Force and Army personnel work together to conduct a joint emergency personnel decontamination, Thursday at Fort McCoy, Wisconsin. Four pairs of hands reach the casualty, Army Staff Sgt. Nicholas Tarzo, and move him quickly onto the litter. While the team members may not have much joint experience, their movements are synchronized and confident.
The Airmen on the casualty rescue team are among the nine Airmen attached to the 46th Cm Company during Combat Support Training Exercise (CSTX) 78-15-02, taking place June 6-26 at Fort McCoy, Wisconsin. The 78th Training Division’s CSTX is a multi-component and joint endeavor which is integrated with several other exercises, including Global Medic, Patriot Warrior and Quartermaster Liquid Logistics Exercise (QLLEX), and occurring simultaneously at seven installations nationwide.
"This is the first time we've ever done this, to compare how we do things and exchange our lessons learned," said Staff Sgt. Michael Aldrich, an explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) team leader in the 46th Chemical Company. "Our procedures are a little different but the goal is the same, so it's been interesting to see what we can learn from each other."
"They've involved us in their missions, [decontaminating] their personnel their way and also implementing some Air Force methods," said Senior Airman Ricardo Galvis, a member of the 439th Civil Engineering Squadron from Westover Air Reserve Base, Mass. "We are integrating into their system as well as adding our spin to it."
Once the simulated casualty is brought across the "hot line" - the start of the contamination control area - the team remove his protective boots and carefully cut away his chemical suit, taking care to dip their hands into the yellow buckets of simulated decontamination fluid.
While the team continues with the decontamination procedure, members of both services stand around them, watching and giving guidance. One Soldier reminds them to keep returning their hands to the decontamination buckets each time they touch the casualty; an Airman offers a prompt when they briefly pause.
"The Airmen keep telling me, 'Many hands make light work,' they keep coming back to that," said 2nd Lt. Catherine Coyner, team leader for Team 1. "They are very eager to learn, so all of them have dove right in, sharing what they've learned previously and learning from us as well."
Once the suit is removed and discarded, the casualty is moved to a fresh litter and scanned with a Lightweight Chemical Detector to check for residual contamination. After it is determined that none remained, the casualty is moved across the “cold line,” the last point of the contamination control area, and taken for medical examination.
"We've taken the same concepts and broken them up," said Senior Airman Ashley Williamson, a member of 439th Civil Engineering Squadron. "We were able to discuss the differences and similarities of how we conduct a detection, and we actually found ways to work together to include what we both know and implement it."
After completing the decontamination exercise, Coyner leads a discussion between the two services in an effort to reinforce the collaborative nature of the training, as well as identify areas needing additional focus. Soldiers and Airmen offer their thoughts on the training and made a plan for the next training exercise.
"We've been afforded this great opportunity to train with Air Force personnel, so we've integrated them into our team for the remainder of the exercise," said Coyner. "We’ve all been learning a lot from each other.”
"In a deployed location, you're going to have all different services, and in the end we all have the same mission - to protect our country - so it's good to know how other services respond to missions," said Galvis. "That way if they ever need help from us or we need help from them, at least we would have an idea how each other do things, so we can work better together."
| Date Taken: | 06.18.2015 |
| Date Posted: | 06.21.2015 14:13 |
| Story ID: | 167556 |
| Location: | FORT MCCOY, WI, US |
| Hometown: | TAMPA, FL, US |
| Hometown: | WESTOVER AIR FORCE BASE, MA, US |
| Web Views: | 83 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Soldier and Airmen work together in joint emergency personnel decontamination training exercise, by SSG Nicole Dykstra, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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