Photo By Master Sgt. Steph Sawyer | “Disaster victims” are medically treated after being rescued from a simulated...... read more read more
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WARRENTON, Ore.--Airmen and Soldiers from the Oregon Air and Army National Guard completed week-long annual training at Camp Rilea in Warrenton, Oregon in mid-August.
These Airmen and Soldiers are part of a National Guard initiative known as CERFP, an acronym within an acronym which stands for CBRNE (Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, and Explosive) Enhanced Response Force Package. CERFP Airmen and Soldiers specialize in CBRNE and are trained to respond to varied mass casualty events.
The scenario that was played out in August’s exercise was an ammonia tank explosion which caused structural damage to a building, resulting in a number of trapped victims.
One of the first teams to respond in a disaster situation is search and extraction CERFP medics. This team is responsible for locating, rescuing, and medically stabilizing victims at the site of a disaster. Their overall objective is to evacuate victims from the “hot zone” to a location where they can be decontaminated, if needed, and medically assessed and treated.
CERFP Senior Airman Kevin Batsch, a search and extraction medic, explained the impact and importance of this recurring training.
“I think the advantage is getting to work, not only with your team, but with your counterparts,” said Batsch. “So that way you’re comfortable with them…so when they send you down into a hole on a rope, you have absolute faith in them that they’re going to be able to get you down safely and they’re going to be able to haul you and your victim up.”
Training events such as this give members the opportunity to practice and apply their skills in a scenario designed to resemble what would happen in a real world disaster. It also allows Airmen and Soldiers to train alongside each other, building team cohesion and trust as well as enhancing skillsets through knowledge sharing and collaboration.
In a real world disaster, CERFP is meant to work alongside civilian rescue personnel to aid their efforts.
“Our goal is to help the resources that are already in an area that are overwhelmed,” explained Batsch. “[To] help them do their jobs of rescuing victims and getting them to medical care.”
Before the scenario played out in the later part of the training week, twenty Airmen took an opportunity to visit the U.S. Coast Guard Air Station in Astoria, Oregon.
Coast guard personnel hosted and briefed the Airmen on their mission. They showed and talked about some of their rescue equipment, as well as an HH60-T helicopter.
The visit enhanced the Airmen’s training week by opening a door for a broadened understanding of the coast guard and how CERFP and coast guard missions could potentially overlap.
142nd CERFP Commander, Lt. Col. Christopher Webb, explained the value of the visit.
“In the event of a real world mass casualty disaster, our paths would definitely cross,” said Webb. “It's very likely that in that scenario, we would be handing patients over for evacuation to the coast guard.”
The goal of the exchange was to lay the groundwork for a more fruitful and effective relationship between the two entities by familiarizing both organizations with each other.
“We…learned quite a bit about how they do patient movement [versus] how we do patient movement so we can speak in the same language when we’re loading their helicopter and using their equipment,” said Webb.
Webb intends to continue to build the relationship moving forward.
“We established that we both have a tremendous desire to start communicating with one another,” said Webb. “So we’re going to do that in future exercises…and potentially even coordinate a landing and maybe even a patient evacuation.”
| Date Taken: | 08.22.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 08.25.2025 11:51 |
| Story ID: | 546267 |
| Location: | CAMP RILEA, OREGON, US |
| Web Views: | 41 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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