Photo By Spc. Joshua Morris | A UH-60 helicopter departs after delivering simulated casualties to the 325th Combat...... read more read more
FORT HUNTER LIGGETT, Calif. - Soldiers from the 325th Combat Support Hospital took part in training as a part of Operation Caucasus Restore July 30, 2015. The 325th CSH is part of the 139th Medical Brigade, 807th Medical Command Deployment Support from Independence, Missouri.
The objective of the training was to produce real-world scenarios Soldiers are faced with while in combat and evaluate how well they react to them.
One of the scenarios the 325th CSH encountered was treating a victim of a heart attack. The simulated casualty was rushed into the 325th CSH’s tent—just as they would a real casualty— where a team of medical personnel met them. Upon the victim’s arrival, the once idle emergency technician room was now swarmed with various medical staff ready to attend to the patient.
The staff surrounds the casualty and immediately commences to perform protocol, which includes connecting the casualty up to various machines, inserting a tube through the mouth to assist with breathing and performing CPR to bring rhythm.
Capt. Danny George, a registered nurse with the 325th CSH, was there to perform CPR and other treatments to the heart attack casualty.
“We hook up the leads for the monitors and also get him into rhythm,” said George. “We also do a 12-lead ECG (electrocardiogram). That’s where you can see each area of the heart. It showed that he was having some type of blockage.”
Though each medic is fully versed in all of the equipment needed to treat a casualty it doesn’t necessarily make the job easier.
“It can be a lot of pressure and it’s nerve wrecking, but you have to just take a deep breath and calm down,” said Spc. Samantha Pierce, a combat medic with the 325th CSH. “As soon as you get nervous, as soon as you start to get flustered, so does everyone else on the team.”
The pressure faced in treating these casualties isn’t something new.
A majority of the Soldiers in the 325th CSH also work in the medical field in their civilian occupations. These training exercises are opportunities for them to take what they learn and apply to the civilian side as well.
“I get to see a lot more trauma in the military than I do in the civilian world,” said Pierce. “This really helps me treat actual casualties in the civilian world.”
Whether dealing with real or simulated casualties, the training the 325th CSH goes through is ran at a real-life pace with urgency and care. After being treated in the EMT room, the heart attack casualty is then taken into the intensive care unit to be stabilized.
Spc. Arthur Bowen, a combat medic with the 325th CSH, is very familiar with the ICU and was the medic who delivered and treated the heart attack casualty.
“We transfer him from the EMT down here, and then we transfer him from the stretcher to the bed,” said Bowen. “Then we get him hooked up to the heart monitor and the pulsar. That way we can see what’s going on.”
After being stabilized in ICU, the casualty is watched by medics like Bowen around the clock.
Within moments of the casualty being stabilized in ICU, word is received that there is another incoming casualty that needs treatment in the EMT. Like clockwork, members of the 325th CSH man their stations in preparation.
“Once you’ve done it several times in the scenarios, you get pretty comfortable with it,” said George.
| Date Taken: | 08.02.2015 |
| Date Posted: | 08.02.2015 15:41 |
| Story ID: | 171868 |
| Location: | FORT HUNTER LIGGETT, CALIFORNIA, US |
| Web Views: | 100 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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