Joint Readiness Training Center Exercise 09-09: Aeromedical evacuation Airmen build on skills at JRTC

Published Aug. 25, 2009
By Maj. Michiko R. Riley
Special to Air Mobility Command Public Affairs

FORT POLK, La. -- A combined team of aeromedical evacuation Airmen participating in the Joint Readiness Training Center Exercise 09-09 say the "realistic flavor of combat operations" is helping build on their skills.

"Training doesn't get any more real than it does at JRTC," said Senior Airman Tara Bennett, a medical technician from the 6th Air Mobility Wing at MacDill AFB, Fla., who completed a tour at Forward Operating Base Salerno, Afghanistan, in 2007. "This is exactly the same as in Afghanistan. The training experience from working jointly with the Army and medical staff is also helpful."

Airman Bennett, alongside 13 other medical technicians and staff, must operate and sustain a Mobile Aeromedical Staging Facility, or MASF, for the exercise. Aeromedical Airmen have joined together from MacDill AFB, Pope AFB, N.C., Lackland AFB, Texas; and March Air Reserve Base, Calif., said Master Sgt. Dave Brown, an AE program manager for JRTC from Air Mobility Command's Operations Directorate at Scott Air Force Base, Ill.

Once fully operational, the MASF and the team are capable of caring for up to 40 patients who are ready to be evacuated outside the area of operations, Sergeant Brown said. An MASF is Air Mobility Command's initial push to get air evacuation in motion in preparation for the permanent contingency air medical staging facility.

In one of the JRTC exercise scenarios they've experienced, a combat surgical hospital team delivers four soldiers "wounded" at their forward operating base to the MASF. The team reassesses the health conditions, administers medication and advises them of airlift conditions. The staff then transports the litters of patients to an awaiting aircraft for immediate evacuation.

"I think they did excellent," said Maj. Beth Anne Spoon on the team's completion of the scenario. Major Spoon is an exercise observer and a flight nurse from Air Force Material Command Headquarters at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. "They used good communication to lift the litters on to simulated aircraft."

Over the course of the JRTC exercise, AE crews perform simulated AE missions including on-ground and in-flight AE operations like patient transport and evacuation, monitoring patients, on-going medical assessments. They also train Army Soldiers on how to request aeromedical evacuation support.

Members of AMC's Operations Directorate have helped to plan the exercise, Sergeant Brown said. The training is meant to give AE crews the opportunity to train side-by-side with sister services as well as coalition partners in "realistic exercise contingency environments before deployments."

According to AMC facts, during the Vietnam War it took approximately 45 days for wounded service members to be returned to the U.S. In Operation Desert Storm it took 10 days. Now, because of advances made by the U.S. military and AMC, it takes about three days or less to return injured warfighters home, aiding in a better than a 95 percent survival rate.