Mass casualty exercise keeps deployed Airmen mission-ready
By Senior Airman Kia Atkins, 379th Expeditionary Air Wing Public Affairs
/ Published November 13, 2014
AL UDEID AIR BASE, Qatar --
Medical and Firefighting Airmen here, responded to a mass casualty exercise, Nov. 10, to improve their ability to respond to real-world medical emergencies while supporting contingencies.
As first responders, Airmen from the Expeditionary Medical Group and the 379th Expeditionary Civil Engineering Squadron train to enhance their response time, skills and knowledge to save lives during intense medical emergencies. During the exercise, victims were prepositioned with simulated injuries after their bikes had been struck by a van.
“Practice makes perfect,” said Lt. Col. Lee Alexander, 379th EMDG inpatient flight commander. “We have to make sure we get the right team there in a timely manner in order to deal with a real emergency should one occur.”
The 379th EMDG was in the middle of changing shifts during this exercise and although most had already gone home for the day, they were able to return to the medical group in a timely manner.
“Getting everyone back here in timely manner is critical for our patients, and most of our people were able to get back here fairly quickly and get the patients into surgery to take care of them and increase their survival rate,” said Alexander.
Although the exercise was intended as a training scenario for responders from both the 379th EMDG and 379th ECES, the firefighters from the 379th ECES were called in for a real-world incident where they put their day-to-day training to the test.