Soldier Solace: Day 36

Monday started out with us heading out to Camp Bullis bright and early in the morning to start our last week of our field training. This week felt vaguely familiar to the start of our past few weeks, in that it was fairly cold in the morning but then warmed up throughout the day and was then hot for the rest of the week. Once we got out to the FOB we got our gear together in our tents (though I found out they are called Alaskan shelters) and were reissued our weapons. We felt lucky that the buses showed up in the morning to pick us up from the hotel because some people were concerned that because of the government looking like it was going to shut down they might not send us out. Once we got there some people were worried they would not have the bus drivers come to pick us back up. Anyways, I digress, Monday we were scheduled to be in the Role 2 scenario. If you have any questions about Role 2 you can look at some of my older posts that explain the different roles of medical care in the Army. The plan for the day was that Platoon 3 (which I am in) would man the role and in the afternoon Platoon 4 would man the role and we would be some of their patients. We would also receive patients from the platoons that were manning the role 1 that day. My job in the Role 2 was to be a litter bearer and triage at the front of the medical facility. Our training started out with as having a little bit of time for everybody to settle into their own roles and talk with each other how we were planning on having patients flow through our facility. Next we started having some soldiers from Platoon 4 start coming up with various stomach bugs and issues that we would see when we would be deployed. After we had seen a few patients come in the fun really picked up. Some cadre started setting noise makers that sounded like mortars and then they would explode, our cadre with then start throwing smoke grenades and we would have to go out and look for casualties and then bring them in to our facility. At the same time our fellow soldiers would be out going to their Role 1 treatment area and sustain injuries along the way and they would get transported back for treatment and then evacuate from our facility to the Role 3. The day was really nice and we actually had a Blackhawk helicopter that was training with us and they would be transporting patients back to us and from us to later roles of care. We also had ground transportation for the less severe patients. Towards the end of our training time they hit us with a mass casualty to see how we would organize and handle all the patients. We seemed to handle everyone well and I do not think that we had any issues with our part of the drill. After our MRE lunch we were given the role of playing injured soldiers for the platoon that was now running the Role 2. I volunteered to be an injured pt. and was given a card of a person how had lost their left upper extremity in an explosion and was bleeding profusely (A lot of people were volunteering to be an injured person and that they would be one of the ones severe enough to get an air evacuation in the Blackhawk.) I was not sure whether my injury was going to be severe enough for a Blackhawk ride but I was hoping it would be. Well the cadre told us where they wanted us staged and then the set off their mortar and through some smoke grenades around us, we then had to begin acting our injuries according to the card we were given. Well I was found and the put on a litter and carried into the facility. I was unable to walk even with my arm amputation because of my profuse bleeding. When I got the facility they put a tourniquet on me but they still had to get me into surgery. Fortunately, our Forward Surgical Team was back up because they had patients in surgery (you had to hold them in the O.R. for a certain amount of time to mimic real life scenarios.) So they decided to move me into the evacuation area about this time the Blackhawk had just gotten back and had room for 2 litter patients and 2 ambulatory patients, because I had a tourniquet and had been given blood I was deemed to be able to be ambulatory and was told I was going to be evacuated on the Blackhawk. Anyway I have posted some pictures and a video of the Blackhawk and will post some more on later days. After my ride I was moved to the Role 3 facility where I was put in the O.R. and then recovered enough to be moved back to the States. That pretty much concluded my day and I just had to wait to get a ride back on one of the transport trucks back to our FOB. Thankfully I got a Blackhawk ride that day because after that because of the government shut down we did not have the helicopter support so no one else got a ride, and we did not have all of our cadre because some were placed on leave, but more on that another day. Tomorrow I am going to write about our Role 3 and probably Role 1 experience as well.