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SAN DIEGO – (Dec. 06, 2019) Military Sealift Command (MSC) hospital ship USNS Mercy (T-AH 19) concluded the quarterly Mercy Exercise (MERCEX) Dec. 6th.
During the pierside exercise the Mercy crew which consisted of more than 300 embarked Sailors, Soldiers, and Airmen conducted an array of exercises, trainings, and drills to sharpen their skills.
“This MERCEX focused a lot on burn victim care and response as we might in a battle at sea,” said Capt. John Rotruck, Mercy’s commanding officer. “Our goal was to ‘train like we fight’, so our crew can provide the best health service support to our joint warfighters. This MERCEX our crew proved they can handle the situation if it was ever to happen.”
Mercy’s crew focused their efforts and training in familiarization with Joint Trauma System clinical practice guidelines for the care of burn-injured patients, Tactical Combat Causality Care (TCCC) specific to burn patients, flight deck drills, trainings and lectures to prepare the ship in case of a Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HA/DR) situation.
“Although we were pierside, this MERCEX proved that our crew could handle burn injured patients coming from anywhere,” said Capt. William Scouten, Mercy’s executive officer. “If we were to be activated for a combat or HA/DR response tomorrow, I trust our team would be more than capable of answering the nations call and providing the support the fleet would need.”
When called upon, the Mercy is expected to deploy within five days to provide scalable role three medical and surgical care across a broad range of specialties. Mercy does so while serving as an afloat theater hospitalization capability, all in support of the joint warfighter engaged in the full range of military operations.
MERCEX keeps both the MSC merchant mariners and service members up to par on their skills and keeps them ready to deploy in a moments call to anywhere in the world.
Mercy is currently operating pier side in San Diego for Mercy Exercise 20-1. Mercy is one of two hospital ships owned and operated by Military Sealift Command. Mercy conducts operations in the Pacific area of responsibility under the guidance of U.S. Pacific Command and Commander Pacific Fleet.
| Date Taken: | 12.06.2019 |
| Date Posted: | 12.06.2019 11:14 |
| Story ID: | 354530 |
| Location: | SAN DIEGO, CA, US |
| Web Views: | 26 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, MERCEX 20-1 Concludes, by PO3 Harley Sarmiento, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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