45 AES concludes three day training mission

  • Published
  • By SrA Adam Borgman
  • 927 ARW / PA
MACDILL AIR FORCE BASE, Florida --  Members of the 45th Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron, MacDill Air Force Base, Florida completed a three-day training mission July 20 to maintain their currency on a KC-135 Stratotanker.

The 13 member team accomplished multiple scenarios including a patient succumbing to altitude sickness due to an inflight emergency and another patient experiencing heart palpitations.

"We accomplished a lot of training this weekend, including some scheduled evaluations and some no-notice check rides to test our member's skills and abilities without warning." said Master Sgt. Darryl Ford, 45 AES senior enlisted evaluator.

One of the members who received a no-notice evaluation was Master Sgt. Jarrard Mack.

"Providing care to patients at 35,000 feet brings a unique set of challenges and the medical and aircraft emergency evaluations we received this weekend prepares us for real word missions while maintaining our medical readiness," Mack said.

Each of the medical professionals on this mission had a specific role which fulfilled a quarterly training requirement.

"There are six primary positions that make up our crew, the mission clinical coordinator runs all the scenarios, the mission clinical director is the flight nurse in charge of the overall mission, assisted by a second flight nurse," Master Sgt Mary Beth Young, 45 AES mission scheduler said."Then there are three patient care med technicians that consist of a charge med tech that controls all the equipment and oversees the other med techs, the next med tech controls the littered patients, and the third that controls the baggage, meals, and ambulatory patients."

The primary mission of the KC-135 Stratotanker is air-to-air refueling, but when these nurses and medical technicians need to transport injured service members to safety, they can quickly be converted into mobile hospitals. In addition to the KC-135, the members of the 45 AES must be universally qualified on the C-130 and C-17 aircraft.

Several AES members on this training mission have served on multiple deployments overseas, and many just recently returned home. Their experiences are both rewarding and humbling according to Tech. Sgt. Monica Eastman, 45 AES.

"Over the years we have increased the patient survival rate to 99%, primarily because evacuation missions that used to take months now takes days" Eastman said. "As a team we have probably touched over 300 lives during our deployments, but we are not the heroes, we are just doing our job to bring the real heros home to their families".