Photo By Staff Sgt. Kellen Stuart | Staff Sgt. Justin Jackson, 3rd Combat Aviation Brigade paramedic, prepares equipment...... read more read more
Emergency personnel are dispatched to the scene of an accident. Two people are critically injured and need to be rushed to the hospital. Locally, in Savannah, Georgia, the emergency personnel dispatched are paramedics from Southside Emergency Medical Services. However, in a deployed environment, the emergency personnel dispatched are flight paramedics from a medical evacuation company.
Since March 2017, flight paramedics from C Company, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Aviation Regiment have partnered with Savannah’s Southside Fire and EMS to sustain and hone lifesaving skills learned at the combat medic course and flight paramedic program, at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, as well as the aviation crewmember course flight paramedic phase III, at Fort Rucker, Alabama.
“Having military flight medics ride along and train with our paramedics has been a great partnership for Southside Fire and our Mercy Ambulance division,” said Chuck Kearns, Southside Fire and EMS chief executive officer. “We benefit from their trauma care knowledge and having an additional medical expert aboard our EMS units treating patients.”
The civilian-military partnership arose from the need to bridge the gap while active-duty military paramedics are not in a combat zone actively seeing trauma patients.
“A University of Nebraska study, ‘Army Flight Paramedic Performance of Paramedic Level Procedures Indicated vs. Performed’ recognized the need for additional qualifications for flight medics treating critically ill patients on the battlefield,” said Capt. Michael Sudweeks, executive officer of C Co., 2nd Bn., 3rd Aviat. Reg.
Although, the Army increased the qualifications of flight medics to reflect their civilian counterparts, the new skills are perishable and require sustainment in order to consider the flight paramedic proficient and ready to conduct treatment in combat, he added.
“This program, the first civilian partnership designed specifically for flight paramedics in the US Army, will dramatically increase the readiness of Marne Dustoff’s Flight Paramedics in preparation for deployment, Army Air Ambulance companies ultimately leading to the resolute goal of saving lives,” said Sudweeks.
When Army National Guard and Army Reserve medical Soldiers are not deployed, or called to active-duty service, a lot of them have civilian medical careers, said Staff Sgt. Justin Jackson, a paramedic assigned with C Co., 2nd Bn., 3rd Aviat. Reg., who works alongside Southside EMS. With the advantage of having a civilian career with everyday trauma patient contact, Guard and Reserve flight paramedics had a better patient survival rate from the pick up at a point of injury on the battlefield to critical care transport to the hospital and even had a better survival rate of getting out of the hospital.
“Being here in a FORSCOM [US Army Forces Command] unit and being in a MEDEVAC unit like this, we don’t have hands-on daily patient contact—especially for those trauma scenarios that we see when we’re deployed downrange,” Jackson explained. “Working with the Southside EMS has the ability to alleviate all of that.”
In a separate battalion training event, paramedics from the MEDEVAC company walked through vehicle extrication best practices, to get injured personnel safely out of a vehicle, which closely parallels the extrication best practices used at Southside EMS.
On May 3, Jackson as well as Charlie Phipps and David Rebula, paramedics at Southside EMS, responded to a vehicle accident close to the intersection of Montgomery Street and East Derenne Avenue in Savannah’s Southside. Those best practices Jackson taught to other Soldiers were put to use at the scene of the accident.
“Working with the teams from Hunter Army Airfield has been amazing,” said Phipps. “All of them are professional and very knowledgeable.”
Phipps went on to detail a previous call the trio responded to.
“The call came in as an about 50 year old patient with chest pain but, when we got to the scene, the patient was mid-twenties with two gunshot wounds to the head,” he said.
Paramedics must be agile thinkers when responding to emergency situations because the situation could change from what was called in to dispatch to be something different on scene, Phipps explained.
The job of the dispatcher, in the Army, falls on the aviation operations specialist, who pass along the information to the MEDEVAC crew, said Jackson. The outcome is sometimes the same as Phipps explained.
“On my last deployment, there was a seven patient call about ANA [Afghan National Army] patients with several wounds,” said Jackson. “When we got there, it turns out to be five US patients.”
Riding on the Southside’s busy EMS units exposes the Army flight paramedics to more emergency patients, like pediatrics, geriatrics, cardiac and other patients who need help with their medical conditions, said Kearns.
The desire toward becoming part of emergency personnel started at the age of 17 after being a patient on an ambulance, said Rebula.
“I had a seizure in my high school classroom—I’d never had one before,” he said.
There were emergency personnel when Rebula awoke who convinced him to go to the hospital, he added. However, while they were on the way to the hospital Rebula had another seizure.
“They led me straight to the CT [computerized tomography] scan where they found a benign subarachnoid cyst, a pocket of fluid that accumulated,” he added.
The cyst was removed, but if it weren’t for the EMS crew there was a potential for brain damage, he explained.
“Since that day, I always wanted to provide healthcare to the public because I will always remember the crew’s faces and kindness [from the people] who saved my life.”
Being a part of the Southside EMS team gives the military paramedics a chance to hone their clinical skills and better prepare them to enter the civilian workforce if they leave the military, said Kearns.
“If I had the option I’d want one of these guys on my truck every day,” said Phipps. “I don’t think this program should go away. I am a firm believer that this is making them a better medic all around.”
“All of us at the Southside Fire and Mercy Ambulance are thankful for our military personnel and their service to our country,” said Kearns. “We are proud of this landmark program and could not be happier with the programs results.”
| Date Taken: | 05.17.2017 |
| Date Posted: | 05.17.2017 14:30 |
| Story ID: | 234158 |
| Location: | SAVANNAH, GEORGIA, US |
| Web Views: | 379 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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