Photo By Sgt. Whitney N. Frasier | A corpsman is used as an example for team two during a lab. Preparing or packaging the...... read more read more
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NAVY TRAUMA TRAINING CENTER, Los Angeles - Death - it takes roughly 10 minutes to die from blood loss, and only four minutes to die from lack of oxygen. Everyone breathes and bleeds the same, no matter the clime or place. From violent gang fights in dangerous alleys of Los Angeles, to small-arms fire fights in the cold mountains of Afghanistan, corpsmen took training to the streets to save lives during a three-week training exercise here, which kicked off, April 6.
"I was nervous about coming here. I didn't know what to expect," said Seaman Michael M. Zuniga, corpsman, Company C, 1st Medical Battalion, 1st Marine Logistics Group.
Zuniga's apprehension is a sentiment that commonly lingers in the minds of service members before heading to war, but Zuniga is actually referring to the Los Angeles County Navy Trauma Training Center.
From gunshot wounds to broken bones, students practice real life situations while treating and caring for wounded patients. The center is designed to provide Navy corpsmen with advanced training in the tactical casualty care necessary for use in the pressure-filled combat zone.
"Most of the time it's in combat when [a corpsman] first sees trauma," said Cmdr. Ave-Maria Reed, 54, Tuskegee, Ala., Operating Room trauma instructor, NTTC. "From the moment their boots hit the dirt, they are sent to medical with no advanced training and they are handed a casualty. [At the NTTC] the corpsmen get that exposure and hands-on experience prior to leaving country."
With the hospital serving more than 700,000 outpatients annually, the facility is the closest the students and instructors can get to a battlefield health care environment. The students spend hours a day in lectures to learn proper procedures and become proficient with surgical instruments.
Rotators, or students, attend the three-week course in hopes to come out with something more than just a certificate. It isn't a matter of a letter grade in the class, it's about the experiences they take with them when they go.
"I want to be more confident in what I am doing. I guess you could say I don't want anyone to second guess my ability to treat someone," said Zuniga, 20, Los Angeles. With only a few days into the course, the rotators began their practical applications in the Emergency Room, but the stress didn't stop there. Divided into teams, the groups worked relentlessly in the Operating Room, the Intensive Care Unit and the morgue.
Deprived of sleep, the healthcare providers worked together to save one life at a time.
In combat, when enemies send rounds down range and injure someone, corpsman snap into action and seem to create miracles. Those miracles have to come from somewhere. It's the trauma training that ensures miracles aren't out of a corpsman's reach.
"It is amazing to me what the human body can sustain," said Petty Officer 3rd Class Melissa T. Hoctor, 29, Concord, Calif., a graduate from the University of California, Berkley and a corpsman for 1st Medical Bn. "Some little girl can be shot in the head with a 12 gauge and still live to see the next day."
With 11 classes and an average of 22 rotators per class, 220 corpsmen go through this remarkable training every year. All corpsmen are eligible to attend this course if they have met the requirements of basic field medical training. Since the course began in 2002, the center received new instructors every three to four years.
"Marines aren't handed an automatic rifle and put in a battlefield. They train like they fight using muscle memory," said Lt. Cmdr. Christopher M. Jack, 37, Clearwater, Kan., a critical care nurse specialist, NTTC. "Here we do the same for the corpsmen. They get the training they need so they can hit the ground running."
| Date Taken: | 04.07.2009 |
| Date Posted: | 04.15.2009 18:44 |
| Story ID: | 32440 |
| Location: | NAVY TRAUMA TRAINING CENTER, US |
| Web Views: | 315 |
| Downloads: | 236 |
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