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The C-130J Super Hercules flight had one reality for the flight crew and a completely different training reality for the military medical professionals in the cargo hold of the same aircraft March 10.
The 815th Airlift Squadron flight crew took off from Keesler Air Force Base flew to Lakeland, Florida, then to Pope Army Airfield in Fayetteville, North Carolina before returning to Keesler AFB. However, for the military professionals in the C-130 cargo hold, it was a medical mission in Afghanistan.
“This was a cross training exercise between the 36th Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron which is an Air Force Reserve unit and the active duty 81st Medical Group’s Critical Care Air Transport Team made possible by the 815th AS here at Keesler AFB,” Maj. Mark Dellinger said.
Dellinger serves as a flight nurse in the 36th AES and was part of the exercise with the 81st MDG CCATT, whose personnel sharpened their skills onboard the C-130J aircraft in actual flight conditions.
“We simulated we were a five person aeromedical evacuation crew with a CCAT team onboard for an urgent mission from Bagram Air Base to fly to Shindand Air Base in Herat, Afghanistan to pick up a patient load,” Dellinger said.
These specialized AE teams include a medical crew director, flight nurse and three aeromedical evacuation technicians who routinely move critically ill or injured troops after they've been stabilized or received damage-control surgery. AE personnel frequently work with CCATT, which consists of a doctor, intensive care nurse and respiratory therapist.
The physician on the training exercise, Lt. Col. Ryan Mihata, surgical squadron commander, 81st Surgical Operations Squadron, recalled working beside Dellinger when their deployments to Afghanistan overlapped.
That prior familiarity illustrates how the Air Force Reserve, where Dellinger serves, and the active Air Force, where Mihata serves, combines personnel for deployment missions.
The value of training exercises for active and Reserve Airmen to train alongside each other prepares them for deployments where they could work together, as Mihata and Dellinger had previously done.
“It allowed us to integrate,” Mihata said.
Many CCATTs serve in medical facilities like base hospitals or clinics on solid ground, so training in a C-130 aircraft expands their medical skills by coping with flight conditions. But, the AE teams get to provide medical
| Date Taken: | 03.26.2019 |
| Date Posted: | 04.30.2019 16:17 |
| Story ID: | 320127 |
| Location: | KEESLER AIR FORCE BASE, MISSISSIPPI, US |
| Web Views: | 18 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Care in the Air: Active, Reserve exercise enhances medical transit, by SSG Michael Farrar, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
