MacDill Hosts Tactical Combat Care Course Preparing Medics For War

  • Published
  • By Tech. Sgt. Shawn Rhodes
  • 927th Air Refueling Wing
MACDILL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. --  Pamela Ward is used to making life-and-death decisions.

As a Hillsborough County Fire and Rescue Department rescue lieutenant, she is responsible for directing the medical personnel at the scene of an injury. She never anticipated having to make life and death decisions under fire.

Yet, that is exactly what she did as part of the three-day Tactical Combat Casualty Care Course, hosted here June 5-7. As a reservist with the 927th Aeromedical Staging Squadron, she learned to transfer her experience and knowledge from the streets of Tampa to the streets of any combat zone around the world.

Ward's military duties as a second lieutenant could call on her to handle wounded troops on the front lines.

"Any emergency scene is intense, but this course shows me just how intense doing this job in combat can be," said Ward.

For many years, Airmen didn't expect to be close to the front lines of a combat zone. Times, they are a changin'.

"This course makes students aware of a changing Air Force mission," said James Norbech, 6th Medical Group medical training manager, the active-duty medical unit at MacDill Air Force Base. "Today, Airmen are on convoys, pulling perimeter security. These are things they didn't do before. All these folks have a solid medical background, but very little tactical background. This course changes that."

To keep up with the changing role of Airmen in combat, the National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians designed and sponsored the T-CCC course for military members to practice their medical skills in a combat environment.

"The three-day course is divided by classroom lectures and skill stations where students learn the application of their medical expertise in a controlled environment," said Rene Suarez, T-CCC coordinator. "Next, students take the skill stations into mini-scenarios, requiring them to move tactically as a unit. The third day, they put their skills to the test in combat-scenarios."

These scenarios are complete with aggressors firing paintballs, mock-improvised explosive devices, and dummies that actually twitch and squirt red liquid onto the ground.

"When I'm on the job in Tampa, I often have the most experience of any emergency responders on scene," Ward said. "Here, I'm surrounded by enlisted troops who have a lot more experience than me. I have to rely on their expertise tactically and medically to get our mission done."

Ward and her team made their way through the three stations the T-CCC set up for them. One station replicated a room clearing gone wrong, where injured coalition troops and enemy combatants were both inside dimly-lit rooms filled with strobe lights and artificial smoke.
The next station simulated the aftermath of a convoy ambush, complete with wounded troops the team had to remove and treat, all while returning fire against paintball-wielding aggressors.

Team members were required to render aid to multiple patients in a rocky, mountainous environment at the last station. Once the team stabilized the patients, they had to remove them to a landing zone for an air evacuation.

"I understand you have to train as hard as you can to be successful, especially in this type of a situation," said Ward. "We can't avoid training as realistically as possible and expect to be successful and save lives. These intense scenarios pull us together as a team so we can accomplish our mission."