Flying medics provide theater-wide care

Published May 6, 2009
By Staff Sgt. Zachary Wilson
AFCENT Combat Camera Team

SOUTHWEST ASIA -- Squinting away the mid-morning glare, Staff Sergeant Danny Au and his fellow crewmates emerge from the cargo hold of a C-130 Hercules. They are tired. Fourteen hours in the back of a "Herk" can do that to a person.

Sergeant Au, who like many of his teammates are deployed from Pope Air Force Base, N.C., and the two other members of his aeromedical evacuation team from the 379th Expeditionary Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron have returned from escorting several patients to and from Afghanistan. Though this particular mission was considered routine, Sergeant Au knows that anything can happen on these flights.

After dropping off the first patient at Bagram Air Field, Afghanistan, Capt. Vanessa Moses, also deployed from Pope and the team's flight nurse, coordinates with the AE representative to load two more patients onto the C-130 in the crisp, late-night cool that has settled in the bowl-shaped valley Bagram inhabits. One Air Force patient sports a thigh-to-ankle soft cast while a Soldier, recovering from a recently administrated appendectomy, gingerly walks up the rear ramp unassisted.

Already waiting on the Herk's red canvas benches, an additional 40 passengers from Bagram are settling into their cramped spaces and the interior temperature rises quickly. Even with the tight fit, both patients are doing relatively well and have no need for a litter or any additional treatment during the flight. The technicians assist them into the seats, and then get themselves comfortable for the long trip home.

After the flight has landed, the crew waits for a 379th Expeditionary Medical Group ambulance to escort the patients to their next stop. Sergeant Au shrugs his shoulders when discussing the evening's relatively slow work load, saying "That's just the job, man. We are always ready for a wide variety of injury types and sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't."

In the aeromedical evacuation operation, a slow mission is a good thing.

"The mission that left earlier today had a person with a critical brain injury," said Tech. Sgt. Mauricio Defreitas, an aeromedical technician deployed from Ramstein Air Base, Germany. "The critical care team flying that mission didn't even know about that patient when they took off and picked him up en-route."

Working in conjunction with the 746th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron's C-130 crews, the 379th EAES is responsible for several mission types. The first - referred to as "Mercy" missions - is a regularly scheduled sortie that delivers patients to different areas in the theater or Germany. The second type, which have taken the majority of the squadron's efforts, are referred to as "Bravo" missions - taskings that come to the planners of the 379th EAES on relatively short notice for patients.

"Bravo missions require us to be alerted prior to takeoff and are outside of the normal schedule," said Tech. Sgt. Steven Barker, deployed from Pope, who in addition to performing as a medical administration NCO, also helps with the flying medics' launch and recovery.

The Mercy missions are "like a milk run," said Captain Moses. "We pick people up and drop them off."

Supporting the Bravo requirement impacts the unit. Supporting these missions give's the squadron's teams experience in the "full spectrum of medical conditions," Captain Moses said.

Teaming up with other aeromedical evacuation squadron's in-theater, the 379th EAES is prepared to deal with the full gamut of casualties. These range from common hernias and other ailments that can take a serivicemember out of the fight temporarily, to more serious injuries that occur in combat operations such as burns, amputations and gunshot wounds, and other medical emergencies that occur theater-wide.

To tailor the teams for the missions, sometimes additional crew members can be assigned to a mission as needed and the squadron maintains a separate critical care team consisting of the in-house flight doctor, a flight nurse and a respiratory technician. This team is called to evacuate the most serious patients.

For the planners of the AE mission here, ensuring all the pieces come together is a bit like musical chairs; seamlessly working with other medical evacuation units in the area such as Bagram, Joint Base Balad in Iraq and other areas within the Middle East and the Horn of Africa, said Maj. Susan Angus, deployed from Scott AFB, Ill., and is the operations team's officer in charge.

"We surpassed 25 missions in January," said Maj. Susan Angus, who heads the squadron's aeromedical evacuation operations team from here. "That surpassed the record for the most missions in one month for the last two years."

Soon Staff Sgt. Rebecca Jaudon, an aeromedical technician deployed from Pope, is tasked to recover the arriving team with a truck and begin the process of loading the specialized gear the team had brought with them to assist with any complications along the way. Once the team's litters, electro-cardiogram machines, dressings, bandages, blankets, and all the other types of medical equipment one would need to set up a one-stop medical shop in the back of a C-130 are placed in the squadron's warehouse, the "Bravo" mission is officially over. The next one won't be too long in waiting.

"I love this job," Captain Moses said. "We have the chance to touch the hearts of those who are wounded in action - there is no bigger job."