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CASF: Sustainment care until wheels up

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Scott Saldukas
  • 451st Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs
KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan --  Being deployed makes things a bit more difficult and challenging than at home station. One of those challenges is the sustainment of healthcare from the battlefield to a treatment facility.

To help ensure that transition is smooth, the 651st Expeditionary Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron Contingency Aeromedical Staging Facility is in place.

"We aren't a hospital or a clinic," said Senior Master Sgt. Laura Salazar, 651st EAES CASF superintendent. "Once someone is stabilized at the Role 3 hospital, they are handed off to us. From that point, we sustain care for the patient until we get them out of here and off to a higher level of care."

Salazar is one of approximately 28 Airmen who work at CASF. She said patients come in and leave as fast as the CASF team can get them out. In the past year, the CASF was involved in 2,810 patient movements and contributed to a 98 percent survival rate.

Depending on the patient's status, from here they will generally go to Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan, then to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, Germany, or Walter Reed Medical Center, Washington D.C.

The CASF is made up of multiple sections, but Maj. Carla Jones, 651st EAES CASF flight commander, said regardless of where someone is working, they all come together to make sure their patients are squared away before taking flight.

"We work closely with the hospital and monitor the flights to see when we can get them out," Jones said. "We have a pre-mission brief where we find out everything we need, from the status of the patients, their baggage and medications needed, even what the aircraft will be carrying so we can determine how early to bring them out."

Salazar, who is deployed from Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, said each day is different and every patient is unique.

"We see everything here," she said. "Some people are passing through due to illnesses and some have severe battlefield injuries.

We see lots of things where people move on to a higher level of care, and get treated, then come back to finish their job. I remember we had one patient that came through, and on his way back when we were gathering his belongings, we saw he had been awarded a purple heart."

While the patients passing through the CASF are appreciative and grateful to the men and women working tirelessly around the clock for them, it is an honor to have been given the opportunity to do so, Jones said.

"This has been a life-changing experience for me," said Jones, who is deployed from Travis Air Force Base, Calif. "There's something about serving the patient, talking to them and seeing them off.

That's why we're here. They've served their country, and it's our job to ensure they're taken care of. There's no better feeling than after rushing around, getting them together and on the aircraft than when you hear over the radio that they are wheels up."

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