Combat Ready Corpsman

SAN DIEGO, CA, UNITED STATES

09.08.2017

Story by Seaman Apprentice Harley Sarmiento 

Naval Medical Center San Diego

The Fleet needs combat-ready Sailors, who at a moment’s call can deploy world-wide. Naval Medical Center San Diego (NMCSD)’s week-long Tactical Combat Casualty Care (TCCC) provider course ensures Sailors are prepared to answer the call.

“Our program teaches down-and-dirty medicine,” said Hospital Corpsman (FMF) 2nd Class Marcus Sanders, a TCCC instructor. “We take lessons learned from all conflicts, whether it is in the Middle East or shipboard, and we train the Sailors how to adapt and overcome - how to help patients and save lives.”

The course provides Navy personnel with knowledge and skills required for evidence-based, life-saving techniques and strategies for providing the best trauma care on the battlefield. NMCSD’s Simulation and Bioskills lab, along with Strategic Operations (StratOps), who provides hyper-realistic training environments, work together to get Sailors ready for combat.

The course starts in the classroom, where students receive four days of classroom training, slides, videos, and hands-on time in the Simulation Lab to learn TCCC basics.

“For a lot of these students, it’s their first time being introduced to trauma care at this level,” said Hospital Corpsman (FMF) 3rd Class Nathan Wagner, a TCCC instructor. “For the hospital, it’s a little different. On ship, Sailors learn basic wound care, but here, it’s broken down to teach you what’s going to kill you fastest in the battlefield.”

Those classroom skills are then tested in a high-stress situation in a mock battlefield at StratOps. Students train in a battlefield setting with state-of-the-art special effects, combat-wound effects, medical simulation systems like the “cut suit”, and actors portraying both casualties and enemy combatants.

“I think the big thing about any successful TCCC program is to get (the students) in the right mindset,” said Wagner. “We get them used to bearing the weight of the battlefield. We throw random wounds at them in the classroom. We run a lot of tourniquet drills and practical applications to keep them awake and to prepare them for the battlefield stress they will endure at StratOps.”

Students take all the skills they learned both in the classroom and at StratOps and apply it in the real-life situations.

“I deployed to Afghanistan after I took the TCCC course,” said Hospital Corpsman 1st Class Erick Burgos. “I was blessed to ‘see one, do one, teach one’. I was able to use my skills and share them with my other Sailors while there.”

As conditions change, so does the training, and the TCCC curriculum adapts to have Sailors ready for whatever may be thrown at them in the battlefield.

“Tactical combat care is part of what we do,” said Sanders. “We have a long history of providing battlefield medicine to shipboard emergencies and medicine on aircraft. Saving the lives of Sailor and Marines is part of our job, and TCCC helps us get the job done.”

• Date Taken: 09.08.2017
• Date Posted: 10.03.2017 17:38
• Story ID: 247477
• Location: SAN DIEGO, CA, US