Medical Emergency Deployment Readiness Exercise conducted in California mountain desert

UNITED STATES

11.05.2019

Video by Sgt. 1st Class Kenneth Scott 

Army Reserve Medical Command

At Sierra Army Depot, in the 4000-foot elevation high desert of the Sierra Nevada Mountain range, Army Medical units have assembled after being given five days’ notice that they were being evaluated in an Emergency Deployment Readiness Exercise or EDRE. The 531st Hospital Center from Fort Campbell, Kentucky, was put on alert and instructed to pack personal deployment gear and head out the door. They were to rendezvous with subordinate units; to mobilize and establish a field hospital. The unit did not know their destination. All conditions were put in place for the event to simulate an actual deployment and allow the unit to exercise all the steps necessary to successfully provide critical medical support in a combat environment.
On this cold, dry and dusty day in late October, the Fort Campbell medical warriors from the 586th Field Hospital, the 175th Surgical Detachment, the 41st Medical Detachment, and the 431st Intermediate Care Detachment set to work to construct a field hospital. As soon as the hospital was determined operational, Air Force C130 and C17 aircraft began to arrive at an adjacent airfield and ground ambulances began delivering a constant stream of mannequins and live role players to the 148-bed facility. The injured who arrived via aircraft, were from the simulated front line, located 500 miles south, at the National Training Center, Fort Irwin, California. At Fort Irwin, a smaller field hospital, the 115th, triaged the injured and arranged their movement to Sierra Army Depot. The 531st Hospital Center’s mission included command and control of both locations and managing the flow of patients the 115th was sending them about two times a day via aircraft. Additionally their mission required the further evacuation of more critical patients by aircraft to Brooks Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston, Texas.
The two week long exercise challenged the Medical Warriors with multiple events and scenarios led by Observer Coach Trainers, special effects teams, known as the Effect and Enablers and the exercise control staff. This support staff consists of Active Duty units from the 44th Medical Brigade of Fort Bragg, North Carolina, the Air Mobility Command, U.S. Transportation Command and Army Reserve Units from the Medical Readiness Training Command.
Supporting and evaluating medical units readiness is the primary mission of those that serve in the Army Reserve’s Medical Readiness Training Command or MRTC. The command conducts similar exercises multiple times a year, but rarely with the short notice deployment that is specific to the EDRE. This model of exercise remains similar to exercises like Global Medic, where the MRTC evaluates Army Reserve Medical units at Fort Hunter Liggett, California and Fort McCoy, Wisconsin to assure that the Army Reserve maintains combat-ready and highly-skilled Soldiers required for America's Army to win the nation’s wars.
The Medical Readiness Training Command advised and oversaw many of the exercise control functions as the 44th Medical Command supplied the Observer Coach Trainers that interfaced with the training units.

• Date Taken: 11.05.2019
• Date Posted: 11.26.2019 08:54
• Category: Package
• Video ID: 724581
• VIRIN: 191105-A-UJ522-374
• Filename: DOD_107472760
• Length: 00:06:33
• Location: US