JOINT BASE ANDREWS NAVAL AIR FACILITY WASHINGTON - Specialized medical personnel from the Air National Guard will begin flying Critical Care Air Transport Team missions from Ramstein Air Base, Germany next week.
This ANG effort is significant, because it will decrease the burden on the active-duty Air Force to field these high-demand and low-density teams, and it represents another significant contribution to the war effort by the ANG through 100 percent volunteerism.
The CCATT consists of a physician specializing in an area such as critical care, pulmonology, anesthesiology or surgery, along with a critical care nurse and a respiratory technician.
The team along with its special medical equipment can turn almost any airframe into a flying intensive care unit within minutes.
CCATTs are experienced in the care of critically ill or injured patients with multi-system trauma, shock, burns, respiratory failure, multiple organ failure, or other life-threatening complications.
The complex, critical nature of patients in hemodynamic flux requires continual stabilization and advanced care and may even require life-saving invasive interventions during transport.
The Air Guard will place at least one CCATT on each rotation flying out of Ramstein for the next two years, and we are looking to combine with the Air Force Reserve to field even more teams in the coming months.
A flexible tour length allows for maximum participation among these highly specialized caregivers, who are in high demand in the civilian world as well as the military.
The Air Guard went from having absolutely no CCATTs six months ago to providing the trained and ready manpower for this Air Expeditionary Force requirement for the next two years.
We did this at no cost to the ANG through partnership with the active-duty Air Force, by taking advantage of the years of experience that most ANG physicians accrued.
It takes years to develop the required clinical skills and abilities required for the CCATT, and that makes CCATT a good fit and a good mission for the ANG.
Maintaining this capability in the Air Guard and the Air Force Reserve provides a Total Force benefit, because it allows the physicians and nurses to continue serving in uniform instead of separating from the service completely.
This mission is also an excellent recruiting tool for physicians and nurses, because it gives them a meaningful flying mission. Flying missions have become scarce as the back seats have gone away in the fighter community.
Air Guard CCATTs will also give state governors a surge capacity for homeland response evacuations that otherwise would not exist. They can be available in the event of any natural or manmade disaster with civilian casualties.
Finally, I would like to thank our team, including Brig. Gen. John Owen, the Air Guard assistant to Air Mobility Command’s surgeon general office, Col. Bruce Guerdan, the Florida National Guard’s air surgeon, and Dave Plaudis of my office, for coordinating this initial CCATT stand-up for the Air Guard.
Their hard work will not only benefit our warfighters, but it will also provide assets to our citizens during a national emergency here at home.