Photo By Master Sgt. Jeffrey Duran | Hundreds of medical mannequins wait in storage for use by the Effects and Enablers...... read more read more
FORT McCOY, Wisconsin – It might sound like a scene from a zombie flick: hundreds of "bodies" sprawled across a battlefield, each gruesomely wounded on schedule. However, it's just another day at Global Medic – an annual full-spectrum training exercise where active-duty and Reserve component Soldiers, Airmen, and Sailors face unscripted battlefield medical scenarios.
Behind the scenes of this controlled chaos is the Effects and Enablers (E&E) team from the U.S. Army Reserve’s Medical Readiness and Training Command (MRTC). They are one of the keys to making Global Medic such a realistic and valuable training event.
Global Medic thrives on realism. The E&E team is responsible for creating lifelike simulated combat casualties, and they're probably best known for their skill with moulage—the special-effects makeup that can fake anything from a black eye to an open abdominal wound. Yes, it's the same gory stuff used by Hollywood effects gurus, minus the red carpet.
Tracking all those simulated casualties, including a mix of live role-players and high-tech medical mannequins, across a sprawling training area is no small feat. It's a logistical challenge that Sgt. Delia Aguayo-Baldovinos, a member of the 7306th Medical Exercise Support Battalion, loves so much she specifically requested the job of "patient tracker." In her role, she ensures that approximately 250 mannequin patients make 1,500 appearances exactly where and when they're supposed to throughout the exercise.
"What stuck out to me, the reason why I wanted to be in E&E, was the moulage. I wanted to work with moulage. I tried it last year, loved it, and I requested to be here," said Aguayo-Baldovinos. Moulage, French for moulding, is the art of creating simulated wounds.
However, the E&E team does far more than just paint fake wounds on people and dummies. There’s a great deal of effort required to get a "casualty" off the E&E production room floor and into the field, where training medical soldiers can begin treating them. Aguayo-Baldovinos and her teammates basically run a wartime prop department and ambulance service all in one, rushing simulated injuries to the front lines of the training scenario. And those injuries can get pretty wild. Aguayo-Baldovinos noted that some units come up with extremely gruesome requests for battlefield trauma.
"We've seen some that are requesting chemical burns, some gunshot wounds, some IEDs, and some of them are pretty gory. They're pretty crazy to see. They're very realistic. We've seen them on the face, on the body, a few femurs and tibias, you know, kind of blown off. It's pretty interesting seeing some eyeballs sticking out of the mannequins. It's very realistic," said Aguayo-Baldovinos.
In other words, the faux casualties here aren't limited to a simple cut or bruise—we're talking full horror movie realism when needed, complete with fake amputations and even the occasional dangling eyeball. Each event-driven scenario that unfolds (known as an "inject") requires the E&E team to spring into action like a medical drama stage crew. They act as a production center for realistic casualties drawn from real combat situations, and they also provide the logistical support to transport those simulated casualties to various tactical training bases where field hospitals and medical units are operating.
"When we receive the inject, we verify what they need. Meaning, do they need live role players? Do they need mannequins? Do they need simulated mannequins that move, being controlled? And there's also canines (military working dog mannequins) that would be requested. I push it down to the moulage team, so to the NCOIC with moulage. They prepare these mannequins, and I get with my (evacuation) NCOIC to ensure they get pushed out that way," said Aguayo-Baldovinos.
In practice, that means Aguayo-Baldovinos might be coordinating everything from a Soldier with a realistic prosthetic leg wound to an animatronic military working dog with simulated injuries. Once an inject request comes in, she confirms whether it calls for a live actor or one of the high-tech dummies (some of which can even bleed or move). Then she makes sure the moulage artists get them looking just right, blood, guts, and all, before handing them off to the evacuation team that will rush them to the training site. It's a fast-paced, carefully choreographed process.
It’s an unusual duty for a Human Resources Specialist. Aguayo-Baldovinos’s official Army job is 42A (Human Resources Specialist), a role typically associated with office work and personnel files rather than fake blood and battlefield chaos. "Patient tracking" at Global Medic is a far cry from pushing paperwork, but she has embraced it wholeheartedly.
"With patient tracking, we are in charge of the mannequins that you’ll probably see passing through; in charge of basically tracking where they’re going, when they return to us; ensuring that as they’re heading out, they’re also coming back in, and we’re not losing any of them, and we’re tracking where they are," said Aguayo-Baldovinos.
No dummy gets left behind on her watch. She’s essentially the air traffic controller for casualties. Every mannequin or role-player has a time and place to enter the fray, and it's her job to ensure they arrive in the right condition of "injury" and then account for them when the scenario wraps up. Managing 1,500 moving (and sometimes bleeding) parts might sound stressful, but Aguayo-Baldovinos thrives on it.
Aguayo-Baldovinos originally served on active duty before joining the Army Reserve a couple of years ago, bringing her experience and enthusiasm into MRTC’s training mission. She said that she loves her role on the E&E team. It’s not just the creative gore of moulage that she enjoys; she also finds satisfaction in the critical behind-the-scenes coordination that makes the exercise run smoothly.
Dedicated leaders, hardworking Soldiers, and a commitment to excellence in medical training are what make Global Medic the capstone medical exercise for Army medicine. MRTC executes Global Medic as part of Army Reserve Medical Command’s larger mission to provide trained, equipped, and combat-ready units and medical personnel ready to support the Total Force on the battlefields of today and tomorrow.
| Date Taken: | 08.12.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 08.13.2025 14:41 |
| Story ID: | 545501 |
| Location: | WISCONSIN, US |
| Hometown: | HINKLEY, CALIFORNIA, US |
| Web Views: | 30 |
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This work, Tracking Dummies: Soldier ensures 1,500 bodies show up wounded where and when they are supposed to be, by MSG Jeffrey Duran, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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