Two Sailors and a Soldier walk into the ER

Photo By Sgt. Gabino Perez | UNDISCLOSED LOCATION, SOUTHWEST ASIA – U.S. Navy Lt. Anna Hanson, a nurse with the shock trauma platoon of Combat Logistics Detachment 37 attached to Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force Crisis Response-Central Command, draws a syringe during an integrated exercise with the Expeditionary Resuscitative Surgical System Team 20, a subordinate command attached to Naval Amphibious Force, Task Force 51/5th Marine Expeditionary Brigade August 21, 2018. Routine training exercises increase the ability of SPMAGTF-CR-CC and ERSS to plan, communicate and execute complex operations in response to crises in the region. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Gabino Perez)  

(UNDISCLOSED LOCATION)

08.21.2018

Story by Sgt. Royce Dorman 

Task Force 51/5th Marine Expeditionary Brigade

“To you it’s chaotic; for us everything is just flowing,” said HM3 Alasia Garcia, a Corpsman on her first deployment with the shock trauma platoon. “And it feels so slow, like I’m not moving fast enough, even though to you guys it doesn’t look like that.”

This two day training evolution, August 21-23, 2018, brought together three components of a premier medical team: the shock trauma platoon from SPMAGTF-CR-CC, a U.S. Navy Expeditonary Resuscitative Surgical System team from Naval Amphibious Force, Task Force 51, 5th Marine Expeditionary Brigade (TF 51/5), and U.S. Army Trauma Surgeon Lt. Col. John Chovanes, currently augmented to ERSS team 20.

“The concept of the team is to take highly skilled individuals, put them together as a team and deploy them as a highly mobile surgical resuscitation as well as a trauma resuscitation capability that’s delivered to locations both afloat and at shore,” said Lt. Cmdr. Derek Foerschler, the anesthesiologist with ERSS team 20 from TF 51/5.

The teams were brought together to provide a higher echelon of care to the front lines. The ERSS team from TF 51/5 is a resuscitative system for patients who experience a cardiac arrest or are unconscious. The shock trauma platoon specializes in providing care in austere environments to the severely wounded. Bringing these two teams together under one tent, along with a surgeon, creates a vital medical capability, as time is paramount when caring for a casualty.
“When you’re seriously wounded there are many things going on. It’s not just not bleeding, broken bones, a bad traumatic brain injury,” said U.S. Army Lt. Col. John Chovanes, a trauma surgeon augmented to TF 51/5 from the U.S. Army’s 75th combat support hospital. “It’s very complex as the human body goes through that tremendous disruption and you need all hands on deck. The ERSS with the shock trauma platoon brings all those hands together.”

The exercise supported the assumption that these two teams of sailors, augmented with an Army surgeon, would be able to seamlessly provide a unit like the Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force, Crisis Response – Central Command with a mobile medical unit that has surgical and resuscitative capabilities very close to the battlefield.


“Everyone’s speaking the same language. We have critical care nurses on both sides, we have emergency physicians, corpsman and the ERSS brings the surgeon who has operated in this environment,” said Lt. Cmdr. Joshua Minyard the officer in charge of the shock trauma platoon of CLD-37. “It absolutely validated the ability of ERSS to integrate with a shock trauma platoon and do field operations and be as close to where the Marines are fighting as possible.”

As of right now, this was just an exercise, a test of a compatibility and a refinement of personal skills. The sailors from TF 51/5 will head back to Naval Amphibious Base Bahrain, Chovanes will return back to 75th combat support hospital and the shock trauma platoon will remain postured to respond with the Marines of SPMAGTF-CR-CC. Nonetheless, each team is eager to receive the word that they will work together again, because next time it might not be a drill.

• Date Taken: 08.21.2018
• Date Posted: 09.09.2018 01:38
• Story ID: 291156
• Location: (UNDISCLOSED LOCATION)