Mass Casualty Exercise...

Good Evening My Friends,

I mentioned that I would go over our mass casualty exercise that we performed a couple of weeks ago and so I have had some time to post the pictures. As a back brief, we had some Iraqi physicians visiting and they wanted to see how we perform in the event of a mass casualty, so we put on a demonstration. A mass casualty is when the number of patients exceeds our capabilities to deliver appropriate care or overwhelms our services. So, we have a procedure to triage these patients and move the more seriously injured patients up to a higher echelon of care.

Lt. Welch was put in charge of the exercise and was the OIC. Whereas we have all been through numerous mass casualty drills, Travis has the most experience and a deeper knowledge base on the subject. He has been involved in real world events and worked with the 101st Airborne and so he was our natural choice to run the exercise. Lt. Nott was our triage officer and SSG Julian was our NCOIC of the exercise. He was in charge of the enlisted troops. My job was to serve as the liason for the Iraqi physicians. I led them through the exercise and showed them how we implement our protocols. Fortunately, Travis did such a great job of running the show and explaining each area of treatment that my job on this day was made easy. So, I served as a tour guide.

Before I show the pictures, I want to share with you how happy I have been with how many people have been checking in with this blog. You are all a blessing to me. I was very happy to hear from Lt. Mary Delucio yesterday. Her and Cpt. Leslie Good are two of my most favorite people in the world. They are both RN's and I have worked closely with them and I can say that I don't know two more dedicated workers and honorable friends. Also, I want to thank Robert McBeath who is an old friend from high school for following along. He is the man who led me to the Lord when I was about 15 years old. His willingness to tell me about Christ changed my life.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the pictures. So, here we go:

Here we have some of the Iraqi physicians watching as one of our medics uses the patients own weapon as a splint to immobilize a left leg injury. I am explaining some field expedient methods to the physicians in this picture.

Here I am speaking to the group. Actually I am singing 'Head, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes...' I have Tim demonstrating for me as I sing. Here he is touching his shoulders. He's very flexible.

Travis giving a class on mass casuatly exercise.


This is SPC. Hudnell. He served as our armed security. In a mass casualty in the military, armed security is a must to prevent any attempt to attack our area as we are all gathered in one location making us very vunerable. Additionally, when troops are injured, their buddies can get very emotional and demand that we care for their friends first and so we need security to keep order.

Travis explaining the Immediate Treatment Protocols. His orange vest let's everyone know that he is in charge of the operation. This makes it easy for everyone to recognize who to go to in the event of procedural inquiries.

Here I am explaining to the physicians the history of the Phipp's TMC. The clinic was named after SGT. Phipps who was killed in action in 2004. He was from Chicago but mobilized with a unit from Paris, Illinois.

Group photo

Here Maj. Hawes, myself, and Travis thank each physician for attending our exercise. Dr. Sami on the left is our interpreter.

Starting our closing ceremony.

Here is Lt. Tim Nott. He is our RN and Triage officer. How can you not love that big kid smile.

Travis putting out information and answering questions.

Tim showing us his backside. Right before this picture he looked back and asked if these pants made him look fat? He is very close to exposing a plumber's crack. I will have to talk to him.

Here our medics are demonstrating how to utilize a rigged back board in the event we have to transport a pt. with a suspected spinal cord injury.

Tim is getting ready to demonstrate the Macarena. Tim's an expert dancer. He can even do the Electric Slide. But the last time he tried that, he pulled a muscle in his back and was laid up for 2 weeks.

Either Brandon is signalling a touch down or he is doing an impression of a French Soldier and is surrendering.

Major Mike Roscoe going between patients, looking for the most injured so that he can give them some sort of medical lecture.

SSG Julian. He is in charge of our enlisted guys. He is a police officer in Indianapolis and so he carries a tazer around in case one of the officers gets out of line.

Here Travis is singing a Toby Keith song that goes something like: "It's all about me, it's all about I, It's all about number 1, me, my, me, I..."

Mike has found a soldier that he can give one of his college lectures to. The soldier was conscious and in good health when Mike started, but after the third hour the poor troop fell into a deep coma and was unable to complete the class. I think most of you Butler student's know exactly what I am talking about. Your professor is in top teaching form over here.

Pts. being brought to the triage site.

Medics have accessed the Mass Casualty Care boxes, grabbed their medic bags and are preparing for the rush of patients.

The red flag indicates that this area is where we will handle the immediate patients, or those who will need the most urgent medical care.

We have been notified of the Mass Casualty and so the exercise begins.

Lt. Nott, Maj. Roscoe, and Lt. Latino. Three amigos.

Travis is fielding some questions from the Iraqi physicians. They have a completely different method of handling a mass casualty. Instead of triaging patients. They grab the most injured patient and treat them, perform surgery, and get them to post op, before they even look at any other patient. They have no method for stabalizing less injured patients. Part of this reason is because they do not have medics and their nurses are not educated to provide care.

Spc. Jackson checking the eye pressure of one of our Iraqi physicians as a demonstration.

Here I am going over the eye equipment. Our optomety dept. has a slit lamp, glaucoma screening machines, visual acuity device, and other equipment. I am explaining how the machine checks the interocular pressure of the anterior chamber of the eye.

Spc. Jackson our optician technician.

Here we are showing the Iraqi physicians how we set up our ambulances.

One of our ambulance teams.

Here is a view of our ambulance equipment.

The mass casualty exercise went very well and I am very proud of our medics. They continue to make our company look good by being proficient and professional.

I am also thankful for my fellow officers who are not only my co-workers but great friends. I love them all.

I hope you enjoyed the photos. These are only a few of the photos of the day, but it is about as much as you can take without falling asleep. :0)

Well, God Bless you all and thanks for checking in.

Jeff