GRAFENWOEHR, Germany – U.S. Soldiers assigned to the Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 56th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 28th Infantry Division, Pennsylvania National Guard, participated in an air medevac exercise at Grafenwoehr Training Area Oct. 11.
A flight crew assigned to the 12th Combat Aviation Brigade and a complement of combat medic specialists with the 56th SBCT created a shared understanding and validation of urgent medevac procedures across the training area. The medics had to “hot load” a simulated injured patient onto an HH-60 Black Hawk in a chaotic, loud and windy environment.
Although their goal was to load the simulated patient onto the helicopter, the validation tasks the medics had to demonstrate began long before submitting the nine-line medevac request to range operations and the HH-60 Black Hawk helicopter arrived.
Capt. Wylie Gilbert, medical officer assigned to the 56th SBCT and primary planner for the rehearsal, explained that part of the validation included meeting required timelines for treating and transporting a casualty in an urgent medical emergency.
“We have one hour to get them from the point of injury to a medical facility,” said Gilbert. “It is a very difficult timeline to meet.”
One way to improve invaluable treatment times is to provide enough care at the point of injury to stabilize the patient for an hour until they can receive hospital care. The flight medic aboard the helicopter continues to stabilize the patient during transport.
The 56th SBCT medics dragged the simulated patient from the point of injury to a safe location while under fire, filled in their tactical combat casualty care card to document each simulated injury and the treatment provided, and loaded the patient into the ground evacuation platform in the required six minutes. They then submitted the nine-line medevac request to the range operations, dispatching the helicopter to the nearby landing zone.
The medics practiced treatment and evacuation procedures for four iterations, first with mannequin, then with fellow 56th SBCT Soldiers. Scenarios ranged from treating a burn or fracture to applying a tourniquet to a gunshot wound. With every iteration, the medical teams were timely and accurate.
“I saw a lot of smiling faces. Overall, this was an excellent training exercise,” said Gilbert. “It was a huge success.”