Photo By Staff Sgt. Debra Cook | Army National Guard Soldier surveys the devastation caused in Key West by Hurricane...... read more read more
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Hurricane Irma was strong, but not stronger than the military personnel, civil authorities and people in the local communities who are still working together to get things back to normal.
National Guardsmen were activated two weeks ago and staged before Hurricane Irma made landfall, and today, only a few units remain under the 83rd Troop Command to help with the response efforts. One of those units is the 1-111th Aviation Regiment that is providing emergency medical evacuation flights twice daily and remains staged for 24-hour Medevac operations.
The 1-111th Aviation Regiment recently returned from a deployment in Iraq and Kuwait last year, but that did not slow them down when the call came to provide response efforts for Hurricane Irma.
“As soon as we got the ‘all-clear’ after the hurricane came through, we launched,” said Cpt. Thomas Hobbs, assistant S3 for the 1-111th Aviation Regiment.
During the initial push of the operation, various rotary-wing aircraft flew down to Marathon from Opa Lacka Aiport – an hour each way - to pick up and deliver food and water. During their peak staffing and on-hand equipment, the flight base operations had eight helicopters in Marathon - Laquodas, Blackhawks and Chinooks. During these missions, the pilots also flew over the 126-mile long archipelago to assess the locations where people needed help and to drop off supplies.
During one mission, they were able to work with the local Fish and Wildlife rescue personnel to locate a civilian plane that had gone down. The pilots were believed to be running supplies back and forth between the Keys and the airport. It was the 1-111th Aviation Regiment pilots who spotted them. The Fish and Wildlife staff then conducted recovery operations picking the personnel, with only minor scrapes according to Hobbs, in boats.
Patient transfers transporting injured people to Jacksonville Memorial Hospital were also part of their critical mission support to the community.
“This is the first time in roughly the past 10 years that the 1-111th has gone forward for a scenario in an actual hurricane,” said Sgt. Matthew Braasch, critical care flight paramedic with the 1-111th Aviation Regiment. “It’s been an eye opening experience for me. I’m amazed at how underutilized we’ve been. I honestly thought we’d be doing a lot more. It is good news. When Medevac’s busy, it’s a bad day for everyone.”
Braasch attributes the low Medevac usage to the number of civilian Medevac platforms brought to bear in support of Hurricane Irma disaster support efforts.
“They are ground evacuating the majority of people. Since the roads are open, it’s a lot cheaper, safer and easier to ground evacuate someone four hours via ambulance than a helicopter ride on an [air] platform.”
The 1-111 Aviation Regiment’s higher headquarters, the 83 Troop Command located in Tallahassee, provides oversight and direction to the unit’s mission requirements. For now, the regiment’s commitment remains a steady 24-hour operation to provide the medical air evacuation assets until the community it supports is fully able to operate on its own.
Getting eyes on the operation and to provide first-hand thanks to the soldiers, 83 Troop Command’s commander, Col. George “Vaughn” Brown came to visit. While there, he issued a message of encouragement all of the Soldiers fulfilling a vital mission to the recovering community.
“Thank you for everything that you’ve done,” said Brown. “Everyone’s done it with a positive attitude and provided excellent customer service to our citizens of Florida. Just a phenomenal job across the command and across the Florida National Guard as well.”
| Date Taken: | 09.18.2017 |
| Date Posted: | 09.19.2017 20:07 |
| Story ID: | 248822 |
| Location: | OPA LACKA, FL, US |
| Web Views: | 91 |
| Downloads: | 2 |
This work, Low Medevac Usage During Hurricane Irma Operations is Good News for Floridians, by SSG Debra Cook, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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