Photo By Sgt. Jordan Arnold | Lt. Col. David DeGroot, Army Heat Center director, Fort Benning, Georgia, briefs...... read more read more
There are various types of heat injuries, ranging from mild heat cramps to life-threatening heat strokes. Heat injuries and illnesses are preventable.
Last year alone, Fort Rucker experienced 88 days of temperatures exceeding 90 degrees Fahrenheit for more than an hour at a time. This created the ideal environment for heat injuries to populate. Historically, Fort Rucker has a high number of heat injuries due to the nature of training and the notoriously high humidity and temperatures.
To combat these growing numbers, the U.S. Army Aviation Center of Excellence Aviation (USAACE) Branch Safety Office (ABSO) and command surgeon worked side by side to organize the Fort Rucker Heat Symposium 2022, hosted at the Fort Rucker Post Theater on April 25, 2022, to provide an understanding of potential heat injuries and the ability to recognize symptoms before the worst happens, and provide proper treatment if it does.
“We need to mitigate this risk and bring in the commanders,” said USAACE Command Surgeon Col. Nicole Powell-Dunford. “The trainers here at this venue are going to help so that people are going to recognize the signs and symptoms early, aggressively manage it, and prevent deaths and training injuries in our Soldiers.”
USAACE welcomed Lt. Col. David DeGroot, director of the Army Heat Center at Fort Benning, Georgia, for a class on heat illness prevention and best practice. According to the Maneuver Center of Excellence, also located at Fort Benning, there were 51 heat stroke injuries as a result of foot marches and running events.
“There’s a lot of risk factors, and we tend to overemphasize the role of hydration,” said DeGroot, “By making sure that a soldier or yourself is normally hydrating is not the magic bullet that fixes the heat problem, because of all of these other risk factors.”
The symposium offered a variety of classes to build understanding of the wide spectrum of damage caused by exertional heat illness, heat stroke mortality rate, point of care treatment, and risk factors associated with heat illness.
“We’re starting to gear up for the summer, intense training, and the heat climate that we’ve got here in South East Alabama is significant. Bottom line, if untreated ... unrecognized heat injuries can lead to death,” said Powell-Dunford.
| Date Taken: | 04.25.2022 |
| Date Posted: | 05.03.2022 11:34 |
| Story ID: | 419781 |
| Location: | FORT RUCKER, ALABAMA, US |
| Web Views: | 48 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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