Photo By Tech. Sgt. Madison Scaringe | Army Staff Sgt. Ettore Dimiceli and Spc. Sahin Dominguez from the 482nd Engineer...... read more read more
“Exercise exercise exercise. I’m an RTU. I just watched two aircraft collide. There’s going to be dead people and there’s going to be injured people.”
Michigan Army National Guard Chief Warrant Officer 4 Lee Fuller, Northern Strike Safety Director, makes a call at 6:30 p.m. that begins a multi-agency crash response exercise involving 22 agencies. They don’t know it’s coming.
6:32 p.m. A UH-60 Black Hawk flying nearby pivots to survey the scene of the simulated crash site.
6:36 p.m. Fire trucks depart the Camp Grayling fire station.
6:56 p.m. Fire trucks arrive on site of the simulated crash.
7:13 p.m. The first simulated wounded personnel are loaded onto a UH-60 Black Hawk medevac.
In these first minutes, firefighters, emergency responders, medical personnel, airfield operations and aviation detachments coordinated and responded to the scenario: a simulated UH-60 Black Hawk and CH-47 Chinook collision and crash landing. Casualties and injured personnel were simulated with dummies and personnel covered in moulage.
Fuller said this response scenario meets an annual requirement for aviation units: to run through a pre-mishap plan rehearsal.
“It’s basically taking a bunch of different agencies that have not worked together before, and putting them in a stressful situation, and making sure that all of the basic tactics, techniques and procedures for this type of event are executed properly, and there's a synergy amongst the group that they're working well together, even though they may have never worked together before,” Fuller said.
This year was the most complicated scenario Fuller said he has been a part of in the eight years he has led this training at Northern Strike. The X factor? Flames.
Normally, exercise conductors use smoke to simulate a crash. ARFF Specialists, a contractor, ran a mobile aircraft firefighter trainer that looked like a small aircraft and produced flames. This simulator is new to Northern Strike and made the scenario all that more real.
Multiple fire departments respond to real world events during North Strike and benefit from an exercise like this, including Frederic Fire Department, Grayling City Fire Department and Camp Grayling Fire Department. These are manned by local civilian firefighters and Army Reserve and Army National Guard firefighters.
“These organizations are so professional and they do such a good job that we don't have training delays due to violent fires, etc. Our training continues, and all of this is done in the background,” Fuller said. “They're really the unsung heroes to keep this exercise working.”
Army Reserve Capt. Ben Pitman, 482nd Engineer Firefighter Detachment commander, said his hope was his soldiers felt assured in their capabilities as a result of the exercise.
“We’re on standby out here for aircraft crash rescue, and this gives them a good confidence builder so that, if this does happen real-world, we know what to do,” Pitman said.
The exercise is kept under wraps, even from interagency leadership, until 24 hours before it begins to reduce the chances that someone accidentally spills the beans, Fuller said. Chief Doug Pratt, Crawford County Emergency Manager and Frederick Township Fire Chief, was one of the people who got a day’s notice. Pratt said he would be watching to see how his team interacted with the aircraft.
“We’ve been through a lot of training on it, but they’ve never actually played with one,” Pratt said. “How they set up, how they operate. If they don’t show up first, how they interact with the military side.”
Pratt said this scenario also gives local firefighters real-life interaction responding in coordination with the military.
“Overall, I think the exercise went very well,” Fuller said. “It gave the command the confidence that if we do have a real world mass casualty event, that it will be handled properly, and that all of the different agencies that participated knew the procedures and executed them in a timely professional manner, pretty much to the book.”
Northern Strike 24-2, one of the Department of Defense’s largest reserve component readiness exercises, is scheduled to take place at Michigan’s National All Domain Warfighting Center NADWC from August 3-17, 2024. Over 6,300 participants from 32 states and territories and several international participants will converge at the NADWC. Northern Strike is the premier reserve component training event designed to build readiness with joint and partner forces in all domains of warfare.
| Date Taken: | 08.07.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 08.07.2024 12:45 |
| Story ID: | 478001 |
| Location: | MICHIGAN, US |
| Web Views: | 613 |
| Downloads: | 2 |
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