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FORT HOOD, Texas - A squad of soldiers enter through a doorway,
and chaos begins to surround them.
Yelling and gunfire
envelops them as they move through the room. Lights flicker
sporadically. Smoke engulfs the room. Despite the chaos, the squad
must complete its mission – treat and evacuate the casualties.
Troopers with the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division
participated in the Pegasus First Responder Course at the Medical
Simulation Training Center here March 3, 2014.
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U.S. Army Spc. Steve Whittington, an
orderly room clerk from Headquarters and Headquarters Troop, 3rd
Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, applies pressure to a
simulated wound on March 3, 2014, during the Pegasus First Responder
Course at Fort Hood, Texas. Whittington, a Geneseo, Ill., native, is
participating in the PFR course to learn how to provide tactical
field care to treat casualties. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Brandon
Banzhaf, 3rd BCT PAO, 1st Cavalry Division)
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Not unlike the Combat Life Saver Course, which focuses on
basic self-aid and buddy-aid medical techniques, PFR adds
additional skills into the mix.
“There are more tasks
involved with PFR than with the traditional Combat Life
Saver Course,” said Sgt. 1st Class Wilder Smith, the primary
instructor at the MSTC assigned to the Carl R. Darnall Army
Medical Center. “It incorporates a better grasp on CLS
skills and gives more in-depth instructions and hands-on
experience with them.”
The course implements the Tactical Combat Casualty Care
guidelines, which explains how to treat the wounded, in
addition to preventing additional soldiers from getting
injured while completing their mission.
Phase one of
the TC3, providing care under fire, begins on the first day
of the weeklong course. Students learn that 90 percent of
all combat deaths occur before the casualty reaches a
medical treatment facility.
“The fate of the injured
often lies in the hands of the soldier who provides care to
the casualty first,” said Spc. Roland Franks, an instructor
at the MSTC from 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment, 3rd
BCT.
Since the most preventable deaths on the
battlefield are hemorrhage, or loss of blood, one of the
first steps after neutralizing the enemy is to stop the
bleeding.
“We provide step-by-step instructions and
have them practice on the mannequins and each other,” said
Franks, a Houston native. “Then we give them 60 seconds to
apply a tourniquet to emphasize the importance of time in
treating a heavily bleeding wound.”
Throughout the
course, students must demonstrate the application of what
they have just learned.
“I learn the most from the
hands-on portions,” said Pfc. Joshua Belleci, a human
resources clerk assigned to Headquarters and Headquarters
Troop, 3rd BCT. “As we are putting what we just learned from
the classroom to use, the instructors gave us pointers on
making the treatment as effective as possible.”
After
students learn about care under fire, tactical field care is
the next phase on the agenda.
“In this phase,
students are taught what wounds need to be treated first,”
said Smith, a Kaneohe, Hawaii, native.
Soldiers learn
to control heavy bleeding first, establish an open airway,
look for and treat any respiration problems, consistently
check circulation, identify heat injuries, and treat
non-life-threatening injuries.
The instructors brief
students on different bandages and techniques to keep
pressure on wounds.
“I like the importance they
place on packing the wound and wrapping it properly,” said
Sgt. John Hornsby, an infantryman assigned to HHT. “These
are basic skills everyone needs to know and be good at.”
To show students how to properly emplace a
nasopharyngeal airway, a plastic tube that is inserted into
a patient's nostril to help them breathe, Hornsby
volunteered to have a soldier insert the tube into his
nostril.
“It was great having the opportunity to
practice on Sgt. Hornsby instead of on a dummy,” said
Belleci, a Vallejo, Calif., native. “In basic training, we
weren't able to practice inserting the nasopharyngeal
airway, so doing this was really fun for me.”
Next,
students learned how to observe and identify a respiratory
problem in casualties.
Some instructors who are
combat medics shared their experiences they encountered
during their deployments to instill the importance of the
curriculum.
“I know some soldiers get overwhelmed
providing care to their team members,” Franks said. “To
avoid soldiers from forgetting what to do, we try to get
them to commit the material to muscle memory.”
After
training for tactical field care, they move along to
tactical evacuation. This phase is where soldiers learn the
procedures and techniques involved in moving an injured
soldier to the closest MTF.
Evacuating includes
different ways of lifting, carrying and dragging the
casualty from one place to another. The use of improvised
litters and the proper way to prepare a casualty for an
airlift evacuation are also included into this phase of
training.
In the final two days of the course, the
students take a written test and must maneuver through a
simulation lane.
“We were put through some exhausting
tasks throughout the lanes,” Belleci said. “I had to get
inside of a tank and pull a dummy out.”
The lanes
included realistic situations in which the soldiers had to
apply skills they acquired during the training. Squads were
tested mentally and physically as they navigated through an
obstacle course with simulated gunfire and screaming piped
into the facility through loud speakers.
“This is
the stuff that saves lives,” Belleci said. “Regardless of
who gets injured, every soldier should have the ability to
be a combat life saver.”
By U.S. Army Sgt. Brandon Banzhaf
Provided
through DVIDS
Copyright 2014
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