Services Team Up at Aid Station

Photo By Master Sgt. Helen Miller | Dr. Minh Phan, a dentist with the 4th Dental Battalion, 24th Dental Company, examines a patient at the aid station at the North FOB at Camp Grayling during Northern Strike 2016, Aug. 10, 2016. Northern Strike 16 is a National Guard Bureau-sponsored exercise uniting approximately 5,000 Army, Air Force, Marine, and Special Forces service members from 20 states and three coalition countries during the first three weeks of August 2016 at the Camp Grayling Joint Maneuver Training Center and the Alpena Combat Readiness Training Center, both located in northern Michigan. The exercise strives to provide accessible, readiness-building opportunities for military units from all service branches to achieve and sustain proficiency in conducting mission command, air, sea, and ground maneuver integration, and the synchronization of fires in a joint, multinational, decisive action environment. (Michigan National Guard photo by Master Sgt. David Kujawa/Released)  

MICHIGAN, UNITED STATES

08.11.2016

Story by Tech. Sgt. Daniel Heaton 

Michigan National Guard

“Other than the uniforms, I don’t know that you can really tell the difference,” said Sgt. Terry Warner, noncommissioned officer in charge of the aid station.
“We have Army medics and Air Force medics working together and our Sailors are providing dental care. But each group is really working together to provide service,” said Warner.
The aid station is providing real-world assistance – this is not a simulated environment for the medical team.
“Mostly it has been bumps and scrapes. We’ve seen a few heat cases and we had a Soldier who injured his hand,” Warner said. “We’ve got an ambulance crew ready to go and, if needed, we have a plan in place to work with the local EMS service to transfer patients in to the hospital in Grayling.”
Warner said that because all of the military medical personnel undergo the same baseline training as medics, the ability to work together across military branches is relatively easy in the medical tent.
“Even the Navy dental technicians all have basic medic training,” he said. “So we have a plan, if we did have some kind of mass casualty event, where our dental techs could quickly become emergency medics.”
One of those Navy dental technicians is Hospital Corpsman 3rd Class Melissa Covarrubies, a member of the 4th Dental Battalion, 4th Dental Company, based in Fort Worth, Texas.
“We’re going to be seeing quite a few Marines, performing routine exams or checking other issues that they may have,” she said.
Covarrubies, who has served as a dental technician for about three years, said she enjoys the specialization of her job.
“The medical field is so broad,” she said. “I like to be able to focus on something specific, which I am able to do in the dental field.”
Warner said in addition to seeing patients during the exercise, the troops at the aid station are utilizing downtime to get in extra training. He works in the emergency department at the University of Michigan Hospital in Ann Arbor and is certified as an advanced cardiac life support specialist. He’s sharing some of that knowledge and training with his fellow military medics.
“That’s the force multiplier that we have in the Guard is the experiences we all bring in from our civilian careers,” he said.

• Date Taken: 08.11.2016
• Date Posted: 08.12.2016 12:55
• Story ID: 206938
• Location: MICHIGAN, US