Medical warriors hone skills, harness horsepower to save lives

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Leslie Forshaw
  • 920th Rescue Wing Public Affairs
PATRICK AIR FORCE BASE, Fla --  If you run from home plate to first base you'll have nearly covered the length of the 98-foot propeller-driven  aircraft parked on the flight line here. A gray coat of paint gives it an unassuming exterior, but if you were to look inside September 10, 2011, you'd see men and women wearing Air Force flight suits working with the same sense of urgency needed by the players in a heated baseball game to save lives.

The 920th Rescue Wing is the proud home of a Combat Search and Rescue Medical Element (CSARME); a little known entity within the Air Force Reserve made up of medical Airmen embedded in a flying squadron.

Among its many uses, the HC-130P/N King refueling aircraft serves as their treatment facility flying thousands of miles to U.S. military hospitals in Germany from the theater of war in the Middle East. As the aircraft's aviators fly the aircraft, CSARME Reservists work frantically in the back to keep critical-care patients stable.

To replicate this scenario, CSARME Airmen trained in the King's belly during the drill weekend while aircraft crewmembers maneuvered the King to enhance their own survivability training when flying in hostile territory, although in Space Coast airspace today.

"The training we receive is very diverse and demanding," said Master Sgt. John Schiller, CSARME superintendent. "It provids realistic scenarios at the critical-care level using the HC-130, which is our most utilized platform."

A lot is asked of Reserve CSARME Airmen because they perform 60 percent of the Air Force's worldwide medical evacuation missions.

"It (the training) provides an environment that mimics what might be encountered downrange (overseas supporting the war)," said Lt. Col. Thomas Majcher (pronounced major), pararescue flight surgeon, 920th RQW.

These Rescue Airmen are capable and ready to provide a very high level of patient care in the staging and evacuation of injured patients utilizing military aircraft. We are tasked to provide basic to advanced medical procedures to those patients, including critical patients, for up to 72 hours without resupply, explained Sergeant Schiller.

These Airmen have two different missions - one here and one when deployed supporting overseas operations.

Here, they are responsible for keeping the rest of the Wing's 1,200 Airmen deployment-ready at a moment's notice. This includes: physical exams, immunizations, teaching basic first-aid and providing Emergency Medical Technician refresher courses.

However, when they are called in support of overseas operations, they bring their A game. "Of the nine enlisted CSARME here, five are paramedic and four of them are critical-care certified," said Sergeant Schiller. "All of us are certified in basic and advanced cardiac life support, advanced burn life support, pre-hospital trauma life support and pediatric advanced life support."

All of these different skills are put to work in a non-standard working environment - a metal aircraft flying high above the earth at hundreds of miles per hour. "This is the only way to experience the effects of altitude, airframe movement, G- forces, heat stress and challenging light conditions that are encountered during aviation operations," explained Colonel Majcher.

The stress on the patients and care-givers during flight is something hospital staff just isn't used to. The extremely confined space is also a training factor.

The Airmen have to know how to prepare the aircraft so it becomes a mobile hospital. "We train on the C-130 so our Airmen can learn and maintain integral skills of their job, which includes safely setting up the liters and work environment and mounting ventilators, suction equipment and IV bags," said Colonel Majcher.

All of this preparation, training and knowledge enable the Reservists to load, secure and treat injured patients in flight.

These skills and the desire to save lives is what the 920th RQW mission of combat search and rescue is all about. The motto, "...That others may live," lives on with these skilled warriors.

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