Assessing medical response plan procedures

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Jose L. Hernandez
  • Minot Air Force Base Public Affairs
MINOT AIR FORCE BASE, N.D. --  There were moulage patients everywhere-- under stress and crying for help as independent duty medical technicians arrived on scene to provide immediate medical assistance. This was part of the scene at the 5th Medical Group building where a Major Accident Response Exercise, designed to test the readiness and effectiveness of medical contingency response plan procedures took place here May 17.

The simulated attack involved a terrorist use of chemical weapons.

With 55 mock casualties as part of the scenario, the entire medical group had their work cut out for them as the first line responders for medical support.

Among those evaluated were physicians, nurses, technicians, patient administration personnel and many more. Players during the exercise also included personnel from Minot's Trinity Hospital and the 54th Helicopter Squadron.

William Large, 5th Medical Support Squadron medical readiness flight commander, said coordination with the hospital downtown allows the installation to test their litter loading and quick patient transfer capabilities via helicopter.

"It's a good evaluation on how we could respond if this actually occurred," said Large.

The more than 180 Active Duty military personnel assigned to the 5th Medical Group all played a role in the large scale exercise. Large explained that depending on the incident, certain sections within the group played different roles.

Whether it was providing security assistance or decontamination support, everyone helped out, Large said.

It's important to note that roles and responsibilities executed by Airmen during these exercises extend beyond their primary day-to-day duties.

Large explained the medical group has several response preparedness teams established for these types of scenarios and they conduct quarterly training to sharpen skills.

"Every section within the medical group executes their primary mission but the ability to respond to any incident on the installation is equally important," said Large. "It is important to refine our capabilities to adequately respond to these events and do what we need to do to save lives."

Ideally team members are assigned duties that have some correlation to their everyday work knowledge but in the end, with proper training, personnel are called upon to respond outside normal duties.

Upon conclusion of the exercise, evaluators along with leadership from the medical group go over what areas may need improvement. The areas where training or personnel gaps are noticed are documented, and plans are made for ensuring those gaps are fixed during subsequent training.

Lt. Col. Todd Huhn, 5th Medical Group chief of aerospace medicine and senior medical officer on scene for the exercise, said one example of what could use some improvement was better communication among the different response teams. With how chaotic things can get during an event like this, he said, it was important to look at what could be done to effectively mitigate communication problems.

"Overall, I think we did well," said Huhn. "For a lot of people it was their first time participating in anything like this, and everybody stepped up and did a great job."