Published: November 24, 2009
"Dragon" Soldiers Pour Blood, Sweat and Tears Into Training
By Spc. Shantelle J. Campbell
4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team Public Affairs, 1st Infantry Division
TIKRIT, Iraq - Soldiers with the 47th Combat Support Hospital out of Honolulu conducted mass casualty training.
To help with the training, Soldiers with the 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division out of Fort Riley, Kan., simulated casualties with minor injuries.
"As a CSH, we need to simulate treating a large number of critically injured patients at a time," said Capt. William Enslow, a Dryden, N.Y., native and emergency room physician with the 47th CSH. "Unfortunately, if we draw those simulated patients from our CSH that means there are CSH medical personnel who are not training for what we need to be prepared for."
With the 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team's Soldiers volunteering as patients, the 47th CSH can maximize training for their personnel, said Capt. Enslow.
Specialist Tafia Key, a Wellington, New Zealand, native and Soldier with Company F, 701st Brigade Support Battalion, 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division out of Fort Riley, Kan., portrays a distraught patient during 47th Combat Support Hospital's mass casualty training exercise at Contingency Operating Base Speicher. (U.S. Army photo by Spc. Shantelle J. Campbell, 4IBCT PAO)
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For the first 10 minutes of the exercise, Soldiers with the 47th CSH had already begun treating at least 14 patients. Inside the emergency room, the doctors remained calm but steady as they aggressively assessed and treated the wounds of casualties.
"We try to simulate the injuries using the usual mulage techniques - like simulated wounds, blood, tourniquets - we basically try to make the patients look they would after being treated by an Army medic or Combat Life Saver in the field and then brought to the CSH," said Capt. Enslow.
Soldiers with the 47th Combat Support Hospital out of Honolulu, Hawaii, react quickly to treat injured patients during the unit's mass casualty training exercise. (U.S. Army photo by Spc. Shantelle J. Campbell, 4IBCT PAO)
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"Obviously, you can only get so realistic, but the other thing that we do is try to make the patient scenario as real as we can," he said. "Before we have the exercise we go through each patient's problem ... [and] try to teach them a little bit about the medical physiology so that they can participate as accurately as they can. They do an excellent job."
Portraying a casualty with a forearm laceration, Pvt. Joshua Douyard, a Detroit, Mich., native and utilities equipment repairer with Company B, 701st Brigade Support Battalion, 4IBCT, 1st Inf. Div. said he was real impressed by the quick reaction of the 47th CSH Soldiers and would like to be involved in this type of training again.
"I'd definitely like to do it again," said Pvt. Douyard. "If anything like this happens, I now know to look for head injuries and anything not seen right away."
Soldiers with the 47th Combat Support Hospital out of Honolulu, Hawaii, prepare to move patients for airlift during the unit's mass casualty training exercise. (U.S. Army photo by Spc. Shantelle J. Campbell, 4IBCT PAO)
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"The training helped me [because] now I have a perspective on what I should realize and what should happen if it comes to a real life situation," said Spc. Tafia Key, a Wellington, New Zealand, native and Soldier with Company F, 701st BSB who acted as a distraught patient. "Today, I cried, showing an emotion that I probably would have if it was real."
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