Photo By Sgt. 1st Class David Bruce | Members of Provincial Reconstruction team Khost load a simulated casualty on to a Mine...... read more read more
CAMP ATTERBURY JOINT MANEUVER TRAINING CENTER, Ind. – Smoke filled the rooms and the shouts of the injured joined the cacophony of yelling instructors and background noises. Lights strobed and flickered, cutting through the diffuse red haze with stabs of white. Combat lifesavers rushed to locate and begin emergency medical procedures on the casualties in the tumult; the first medical care these casualties will receive and for some, the difference between life and death. Except this is training and the casualties are simulated mannequins.
Members of the Provincial Reconstruction Teams deploying to Afghanistan this summer recently underwent basic combat lifesaver training during their mobilization training at Camp Atterbury Joint Maneuver Training Center, Ind.
The medical training these troops receive may be all that keeps someone alive long enough for evacuation to a main treatment facility, said Petty Officer 3rd Class Jared West, from San Jacinto, Calif., with Provincial Reconstruction Team Khost.
“This is great training. It gets soldiers, airmen and sailors together as a team and places them in a stressful situation, an environment they aren’t used to,” said West. “This teaches us how to react if someone does go down, to perform the right measures for basic first-aid so a medic or doctor can take care of them completely.”
While basic medical training may be part and parcel for soldiers and Marines, regardless of occupational specialty, service members of other branches can also benefit from the additional training allowing them to become proficient in this critical skill.
“We get some medical training in the Navy, but this teaches you everything for a combat environment, which is different from living on a ship,” said West. “It takes everybody in a team to have a basic understanding of (first-aid) to get everybody home. It only takes a few seconds or minutes and somebody could be gone.”
The combat lifesaver training is a four-day course culminating in practical exercises simulating a mass-casualty scenario that tested what the troops have learned.
“We teach basic combat lifesaving skills for a non-medical soldier, to give them some common knowledge of medical tasks they may experience in combat,” said Master Sgt. Zachary Howe, of Savanah, Ga., course manager for the Combat Lifesaver Course with 1st Battalion, 311th Combat Support/Combat Service Support. “We teach them hemorrhage control, or bleeding, how to put in a nasal-pharyngeal airway, to secure the airway. We also teach them how to seal an open chest wound and to do a needle chest decompression. They also learn how to tactically manage a patient under combat conditions.”
The goal is to have all members of the Provincial Reconstruction Teams certified as combat lifesavers prior to deploying to Afghanistan.
Combat lifesavers are absolutely essential, said Howe. He added, a typical patrol will have only one medic, a situation could arise where a combat lifesaver would be at the point of injury, rendering first-aid that could potentially saving that soldier’s life before the medic arrives.
“This is an absolutely vital course that helps in the continuity of care, from self-aid to buddy-aid, combat lifesaver, combat medic and on up to the combat support hospital. The combat lifesavers are there usually at the point of injury. They can put on a combat application tourniquet and secure an airway; the chance of survivability increase dramatically when those warriors do those tasks,” said Howe.
These basic medical skills ensure there are fewer fatalities in present conflicts compared to those of the past despite the longer durations.
| Date Taken: | 05.05.2011 |
| Date Posted: | 05.17.2011 09:40 |
| Story ID: | 70523 |
| Location: | CAMP ATTERBURY JOINT MANEUVER TRAINING CENTER, IN, US |
| Web Views: | 44 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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