A corpsman cinched the tourniquet tight, quickly trying to stop the bleeding from a gunshot wound as the patient groaned in agony. Fortunately, this was on a life-like mannequin, not a wounded Marine, used during an exercise run by 2nd Medical Battalion for Sailors in the Field Medical Training Battalion- East at Camp Johnson on Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, June 5- 8.
The training prepares Sailors from FMTB for what they may experience when stationed with a medical battalion, and is designed to show the Sailors what the next echelon of care is after immediate evacuation from a combat environment.
“If someone was to get hit, the Surgical Trauma Platoon is where they would go,” said Hospital Corpsman Dakota Kuntz, a corpsman with 2nd Medical Battalion. “What we do here is teach them how to triage the patient, process them from triage into the STP, get the patient stabilized, and send them to a hospital.”
FMTB is made up of both experienced and new Sailors who are training to join a medical battalion at a Marine Corps base. During the training, they work alongside corpsmen with the battalion and naval doctors.
“We take the Sailors and familiarize them with many aspects of what they will experience in the future, whether in training or in a combat zone,” said Commander Leslie Riggs, the Blood Officer for 2nd Medical Battalion. “If there were ever a situation where more manpower was needed in the STP, we want the corpsmen to have a basic understanding of what to do and be able to assist the doctors.”
The training is mandatory for all Sailors who will work with Marine Corps units in the future.
“Every Sailor in the Field Medical Training Battalion goes through this training in order to get hands-on experience,” said Kuntz. “This gives them an idea of what they can expect when they get to a medical battalion.”
The ability for Sailors to get out of a classroom and get hands-on experience is critical to maintaining mission readiness and ensuring they can deploy at a moment’s notice, alongside their Marine counterparts.