927th Medical Teams Train To Save Lives

  • Published
  • By By Staff Sgt. Jennie Chamberlin
  • 927th Air Refueling Wing
MACDILL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. --  With a gaping wound on her side, Senior Airman Vanessa Villanueva, 927th Aeromedical Staging Training Squadron medical material apprentice, smiled as she lay cheerfully on her litter.

"I'm Justin Beiber. I fell off the stage," she said.

Luckily, the wound wasn't serious -it was only plastic. Villanueva participated as a simulated patient during a medical training exercise June 3 at MacDill Air Force Base, Fla.

As a member of the 927 ASTS, Villanueva and her fellow reservists spent four days preparing themselves for the kind of medical emergencies that they might face on a military deployment. This includes caring for and preparing to transport patients in various states of injury from one airfield to another.

Today's tasks involved moving a number of patients from a grassy field in sunny Florida to the wide open bay of a C-17 aircraft. Teams of reservists carried real live people acting as patients, like Villanueva, or sometimes medical dummies, and transported other ambulatory patients onto the plane in a matter of minutes.

This is no easy task.

The process has to be extremely organized, said 1st Lt. Elizabeth Kruszewski, 927th ASTS clinical nurse.

With a window of only 30 minutes, over 30 patients and medical personnel have to be loaded and ready to go. Litters have to be hoisted on racks and secured, and patients who are mobile have to be assisted and strapped in. Patient medical records have to be transferred from the ground medical care team to the transporting team, and speed and organization mean everything. After all, lives are at stake and patients are waiting.

As the plane taxis and takes off, activity among medical personnel pauses for a moment. As soon as they reach cruising altitude, the frenzy begins again. People jump from their seats to care for the injured, taking their vital signs and securing their comfort. Flights present unique medical challenges which medical personnel like to prepare for.

Members of the 45th Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron train for these particular challenges.

Typically a team of five people consisting of two nurses and three aeromedical evacuation technicians care for a plane-load of patients, occasionally augmented by additional medical personnel. They are the crew members responsible for caring for people in flight, and it can be a busy job.

In flight, a patient has a seizure and has to be transferred to a litter. Another patient bursts into loud sobs, and is promptly attended to and comforted. Not only do the members of the 45th AES have to be prepared to deal with medical emergencies, but they are prepared to deal with in-flight emergencies as well.

"If there's a rapid decompression in the cabin or a fire in flight, we have to prepare for that," said Senior Master Sgt. Sonya Smith, 927th AES, superintendent of nursing services. "We train to make sure we have the steps to take care of patients. We do this training to make sure we're ready to deploy," she said.

The exercise allows members of the 927th ASTS and the 45th AES put all their training into action, and that makes a big difference, said Senior Airman Jason Abbey, 927th ASTS biomedical equipment apprentice. "You can talk about it in classrooms and hear all the training briefings, but being out in the field and seeing all the training come together live really opens up your eyes."

Kruszewski said she was amazed by the teamwork and efficiency of the two squadrons.

"It's really impressive to watching people come together to keep the patients safe," said Kruszewski. "I've never seen the process before, and it's an amazing amount of training to fit into a short weekend."