Photo By Lance Cpl. Taylor Smith | U.S. Navy Corpsman HN Melissa Piresvega with Naval Medical Center Camp Lejeune...... read more read more
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Marine Corps Air Station New River conducted Vigilant Response, a full-scale exercise to improve the installation’s personnel and mission resiliency when responding to a pandemic influenza crisis Oct. 17-18.
Roughly 2,000 personnel from the air station, Naval Medical Center Camp Lejeune, the Onslow County Health Department, Onslow County Emergency Management and the N.C. Public Health Preparedness and Response team worked together to simulate a real world pandemic.
During the exercise, training simulations were incorporated to test how personnel handled problems during a pandemic. For example, an individual waiting for an inoculation simulated having a concealed firearm and military police officers had to find and detain him.
“This training is important, because we need to train how we work and how we live,” said Patrick Edwards, the senior watch officer for the exercise. “Hopefully with the training in place, in a real-life pandemic, we would have a seamless operation.”
The exercise also featured two dispensary points manned by corpsman from NMCCL and an emergency operations center. Approximately 80 Navy staff administered 3,500 inoculations during the allotted time.
“Those responsible for protecting the nation during conflicts both foreign and domestic must be ready to fight,” said Sarah Hauck , NMCCL Assistant Public Affairs Officer. “That includes health hazard adversaries. Vaccinating active-duty in mass quantity, demonstrated through Vigilant Response, ensures fighting forces can remain ready to fight together. Vaccinating active duty [personnel] during a potential pandemic situation means the first line of defense is armed with not only their weapons, but also their health.”
The simulation allowed service members to validate the Air Station’s Emergency Management plan and the NMCCL’s Emergency Operations plan. Lessons learned from this exercise will be used for future county and regional exercises.
“Our active duty personnel are here to perform a national security mission; our active duty personnel could be tasked in a national emergency, like a pandemic influenza, to deploy at a moment's notice to a potentially very dangerous situation," said Smith.
| Date Taken: | 10.21.2019 |
| Date Posted: | 10.22.2019 18:44 |
| Story ID: | 348692 |
| Location: | MCAS NEW RIVER, NC, US |
| Web Views: | 82 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
This work, MCAS New River hosts Exercise Vigilant Response 2019, by LCpl Taylor Smith, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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