Photo By Master Sgt. Rachelle Coleman | Medical personnel inside the clinic pull a simulated patient out of an air lock after...... read more read more
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OSAN AIR BASE, South Korea - The 51st Medical Group put their triage and decontamination training to the test during Exercise Beverly Midnight 16-01 here March 8.
Triage, transfer, decontaminate and treat: a team of 16 medical personnel perform their assigned tasks systematically ensuring that all patients, contaminated or not, are provided the best care.
Home to the only fully functioning built-in decontamination facility in Air Force, patient decontamination teams here are able to decontaminate patients on location in the hospital. The facility minimizes the time medical personnel have to set up decontamination stations to treat patients.
As a triage officer, Capt. Brad Pfeifle is responsible for assessing the severity of wounds and sorting patients into categories to get them to the right part of the hospital.
Like the rest of the personnel on the triage and decontamination teams, Pfeifle’s regular job is quite different – he’s a dentist.
“It can be chaotic,” said Pfeifle. “It’s nerve-racking at first but you get used to it. We learn to perform under pressure.”
In a mass casualty situation due to a chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear event, triage is absolutely required for categorizing the casualties in accordance with medical care priorities. Once patients have been assessed, medical personnel move them into the contamination control area of the clinic.
The clinic employs a collective protection system which provides protection against chemical and biological agents through the use of filtered air under positive pressure. When done correctly, personnel will ensure contamination is not brought into the facility and they will be able to remove mission-oriented protective posture gear from patients safely.
For immobile patients, a team of four cut off MOPP gear, then scrub, wash and rinse each patient. The team conducts a final check for contamination before passing the patient into the clinic to receive medical treatment.
For ambulatory patients, decontamination team members walk them through the process but allow the patient to rinse and wash themselves.
The team successfully processed eight immobile and seven ambulatory patients in the expected time frame.
“Overall it was pretty successful, we met our decontamination time goals,” said Capt. See Vang, 51st MDG patient decontamination team chief and optometrist. “It’s really important because we’re working outside of our AFSC; it’s essential because it’s not part of our everyday jobs.”
Whether it’s a regular appointment or a contingency operation, 51st Medical Group personnel are ready to treat and care for Team Osan.
| Date Taken: | 03.08.2016 |
| Date Posted: | 03.09.2016 12:45 |
| Story ID: | 191724 |
| Location: | OSAN AIR BASE, KR |
| Web Views: | 57 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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