Photo By Command Sgt. Maj. Ryan Matson | U.S. Army Spc. Chelo Zadzuro, Headquarters and Headquarters Troop, 1st Squadron, 61st...... read more read more
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NANGARHAR PROVINCE, Afghanistan – U.S. Army Capt. Joe Black, commander of the Headquarters and Headquarters Troop, 1st Squadron, 61st Cavalry Regiment, does not mince words when talking about his medical platoon running the aid station at Forward Operating Base Connolly.
“From top to bottom, they are the best medical platoon in the Army, I promise you,” said Black, a native of Hattiesburg, Miss.
But what makes a good aid station?
U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Christopher Post, the platoon’s treatment non-commissioned officer in charge, said there are several factors which make this the best aid station, and the best team of medical personnel, he’s ever worked with.
“The team of people we’ve got here, a nurse, a doc, a physician assistant; we’re stacked,” said Post, who hails from Lubbock, Texas. “Our medics have numerous tours of combat experience.”
Of the 16 soldiers working in the aid station, 13, including every NCO, have been deployed before, mostly to Iraq and Afghanistan, but also to Africa and other locations throughout the world.
The experience of the staff does not end with the years of formal medical training of the commissioned officers. The platoon sergeant, U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Scott Pearson, from Huntsville, Ala., for example, has 12 years of military medical experience as a licensed practical nurse.
“He knows his meds inside and out,” said U.S. Army Sgt. Nick Reasons, the evacuation section leader who hails from Memphis, Tenn.
Reasons added even the physical design of the aid station building is especially tailored to the mission.
“I think what impresses everybody when they come in here is they see the trauma room, which is one whole side of the building,” he said. “It makes it easier and faster to get patients in and out. We’ve got two beds for trauma, which we can make four. And we’ve got all the supplies you could need within arm’s reach set up identically on each side. If we need to restock, that’s only four steps away (in another area of the station) as well.”
When the medical platoon arrived in August, Pearson said the aid station was in a smaller building elsewhere on the FOB and the supplies were on one side of the current aid station. The medics were supposed to sleep on the other side. Instead, they said they sacrificed the extra sleeping rooms to devote the entire building to patient care.
“We’ve got designated areas for mass casualties, and no matter where we are, the soldiers know their designated roles and positions, we go over it daily,” Reasons said.
The platoon conducts multiple mass-casualty drills. During these drills, the cavalry soldiers administer initial life-saving care on the spot with the medics providing triage outside the building. From there, the medics bring the casualties into the aid station constantly rehearsing their triage through drills concentrating on their positioning while administering care in the most effective means possible.
The medics said they also frequently conduct their own trauma team lanes geared at improving the skills of the newer medics. They said the trauma lanes are very intense, like the ones all soldiers go through in Combat Life Saver training except much more advanced and geared toward training the medics to work under high levels of stress.
“There’s a lot of screaming and yelling,” Reasons admitted. The doctor and physician assistant are on hand for the drills to challenge the aid station staff.
“They’re constantly throwing curveballs at us,” he said, “They ask us, ‘What would you do if this happened, or this?’ They’re really smart guys, so if we don’t know the answer, we’ll get the answer just by challenging us.”
In addition to the constant drills, Reasons said the medics also conduct classes at least four nights a week covering a variety of medical skills they must stay proficient on, typically taught by lower enlisted medics or sergeants.
As in any medical facility, Post said there are no routine days, since patients come in with a variety of ailments and injuries. The aid station also runs two sick calls daily at 7 a.m. and 8 p.m.
The station deals with a wide spectrum of injuries, Reasons said.
“Let’s say there was an incoming mortar round which hit the FOB and there were multiple casualties,” Reasons said. “All the casualties would come here. We would sustain life, stabilize, and in the process, call in a nine-line medical evacuation report to get a helicopter to take them to the next highest facility. From the point of injury until that bird lands, they’re our patients, and we would sustain life for as long as we have to, for as many people as we have to, no matter what the injury is.”
One of the most common injuries the medics at the station say they see is traumatic brain injuries. During these injuries, Post said they carefully monitor the patients, conducting a Military Acute Concussion Examination. Depending on the patient’s history of brain or head injuries, the medics determine whether to continue treating the patients at the aid station or send them to another facility.
“If it’s the patient’s second concussion within 12 months, we automatically send them out for seven days,” Post said. “If it’s their first one, we keep them here and monitor them closely for 24 hours.”
Other common injuries the medics say they see are tuberculosis and muscle-skeletal injuries, which Pearson said is the number one treated injury at the station.
“It comes from getting in and out of trucks with large amounts of gear on, jumping out of them, poor body mechanics, things like that,” he said. He said the station will typically see about 10 patients a day.
Some of these patients include the Afghan National Army, Pearson said. He said the ANA has its own aid station, but because the 1st Sqdn., 61st Cav. Regt. aid station offers more medications and a more advanced facility, ANA Soldiers will often come to it. Pearson said his staff also does training and other exercises with the ANA aid station to better enhance their care.
Besides running the aid station, medics from HHT medical platoon also provide service as line medics, meaning they accompany the cavalry soldiers on daily patrols and missions providing on-the-spot care should anything happen. Additionally, medical personnel from the aid station also set up forward aid station teams on larger scale movements.
“If there’s a big mission, the PA, one of the treatment medics and myself will go forward to the observation point and set up an aid station there for the troops,” Post said. “Our mine resistant ambush-protected vehicle out there is a rolling aid station.”
The medics explained there are different levels of aid stations depending on the equipment and levels of care the station is capable of providing. Though the HHT medical platoon’s aid station is categorized as a Level One aid station, the medics joked they are at least a “1.5.”
“For a Level One, we’ve got a high staff, with a doc, a PA and multiple medics with a lot of experience,” Reasons said.
“If you compare this aid station to the last one I worked at, that one was the size of this small room with just myself and two other medics running it,” U.S. Army Sgt. John Giasullo, one of the platoon’s trauma team leaders from Billerica, Mass., said.
The next level of treatment is the Forward Surgical Team at FOB Fenty, a Level Two facility.
“They’ve got blood on hand, a holding area and other things to support life a little longer,” Post said.
For a Level One facility though, Pearson said his platoon is the top of the line.
“When you look at us compared to the stations throughout Task Force Bastogne, ours is exuding with a wide array of talents,” he said. “We’re a stacked deck and we’ve got a process in place for just about any type of medical situation we could face.”
“Every day we learn something new because of the variety of skill sets around us. There’s always somebody coming up with something new or showing us something new; there’s never a stale time of knowledge, and we all get sharper from it.”
These experiences have brought together the aid station team Black and the rest of the squadron have come to value so highly.
| Date Taken: | 11.16.2010 |
| Date Posted: | 11.17.2010 11:31 |
| Story ID: | 60337 |
| Location: | NANGARHAR PROVINCE, AF |
| Web Views: | 322 |
| Downloads: | 3 |
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