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BAGRAM AIR FIELD, Afghanistan – Military police patrolmen from the 939th MP Detachment and 354th MP Detachment were recognized Jan. 7, 2016 during an awards ceremony at the Provost Marshal’s Office for their actions in response to a traffic accident involving two local nationals who sustained injuries on Nov. 28, 2015.
Col. John Lawrence, Bagram Support Group commander, and Command Sgt. Maj. Jeffery Nall, BSG CSM, presented Sgt. Caleb Freeman, 939th MP Det. patrolman, with the Army Commendation Medal and presented Spc. Austin Barber, 354th MP Det. patrolman, and Cpl. Adam Schuler, 354th MP Det. patrol supervisor, with certificates of achievement.
According to the soldiers, all were on patrol the day of the incident when they received the same dispatch report.
“I was outside the Koele [Dining Facility] performing a compliance check and the call came over the radio reporting that there was a medical emergency at Entry Control Point 3 involving a vehicle accident, so we quickly responded,” said Barber. “We all arrived there pretty quickly, within six to seven minutes.”
“Once we arrived, and figured out that there were two different casualties, it all became a matter of muscle memory,” Freeman said. “Every MP trains for this, so we all picked a certain task to do.”
Once there, Barber mentioned that Bagram first responders, fire fighters and their Romanian counterparts all played an important role in ensuring both individuals were tended to.
“We ride with our Romanian counterparts, so it allowed us to focus on doing what we needed to do, be it making additional calls back to dispatch or other pertinent response teams,” said Barber.
“It was all a collaborative effort. The medic on scene, Sgt. Duncan Wooster, [1163rd Area Support Medical Company medic,] was essential in ensuring that there was a tourniquet in place on one of the casualty’s legs initially, but after tending to the individual who had a partially-amputated leg, we discovered the existing tourniquet was loose on top of the individual’s clothing,” Freeman said. “Since it wouldn’t have provided effective compression, we cut away the clothing and I applied a secondary tourniquet in order to stop further blood loss.”
From there, Schuler quickly established on-scene security and conducted crowd control when over 20 on-lookers began gathering around the scene, which allowed medical personnel the ability to concentrate on the casualties, according to Barber.
Barber said he immediately assessed the nearest casualty who sustained head trauma and assisted on-scene medical personnel with stabilizing and moving the casualty to an ambulance. After that, Freeman noted that he drove the ambulance to the hospital, allowing medical personnel additional time to treat the casualties.
“Due to their quick response time, and instinctive actions while on scene, it directly resulted in the successful recovery, treatment and survival of both casualties, said 1st Lt. Corey Beczkala, Provost Marshal.” “It feels really good knowing that they’re doing the right thing out there without anyone having to be there. It was really good to see them recognized for the way they responded and the things they all continue to do.”
“I feel like it’s always nice to be recognized for what you do, but we never forget that it’s always a team-effort,” added Freeman. “I don’t think it was anything above and beyond of what we’re expected to do. It all comes down to, we were all doing our job and we all happened to respond there at the right time.”
| Date Taken: | 01.07.2016 |
| Date Posted: | 01.13.2016 09:12 |
| Story ID: | 186176 |
| Location: | AF |
| Web Views: | 281 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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