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Medical center conducts extensive evacuation training

  • Published
  • By Steve Pivnick
  • 81st Medical Group
KEESLER AIR FORCE BASE, Miss. --  8/12/2013 - KEESLER AIR FORCE BASE, Miss. -- Lt. Gen. (Dr.) Thomas Travis, Air Force Surgeon General, will observe the close relationship between active and Reserve Air Force and Mississippi Air National Guard elements Aug. 15 during an aeromedical evacuation training mission.

The mission includes an 81st Medical Group Critical Care Air Transport Team, a flying intensive care unit from Keesler Medical Center.

This "chain of survival," developed over the past several decades in support of operations in the Middle East, has been used to successfully transfer the most seriously injured troops home safely and has saved thousands of American lives since 2001. Travis is visiting Keesler Medical Center to view its mission.

CCATT members just back from Afghanistan, along with other Keesler Medical Center medics, will prepare simulated "patients" for aeromedical evacuation aboard a specially-configured Air Force Reserve Command WC-130J Hercules aircraft from Keesler's 403rd Wing. The CCATT will join an aeromedical evacuation team from the Mississippi Air National Guard's 172nd Airlift Wing, Jackson International Airport. The 172nd Airlift Wing, flying massive C-17 Globemaster III cargo aircraft and manned by Mississippi Air Guardsmen, routinely transports injured patients home from Afghanistan through Europe to the United States.

Past CCATT training has involved moving "patients" from the medical center and placing them aboard an aircraft. This is the first time there will be an actual aeromedical evacuation element. The medics and their simulated patients will fly to Columbus Air Force Base, Miss., while the teams train to provide medical care during the mission.

The CCATT and AE teams will be comprised of medics recently returned from actual deployment in support of the troops in Afghanistan. They will share their experience with Keesler medics slated to deploy in the near future.

"This project demonstrates how active duty, Reserve and Air National Guard medics and operators working together can achieve great results and understand what each team brings to the fight," noted Col. (Dr.) Paul Nelson, 81st Medical Group chief of aerospace medicine. "All of us who participate are building a resiliency to respond to disasters, whether manmade or natural, anywhere in the region."

Conducting this training on a WC-130J is another unique part of this training mission.

"This is an opportunity for the 'Hurricane Hunters' to execute our secondary mission as an aeromedical evacuation platform anywhere we are needed," said Lt. Col. Greg Lufkin, 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron commander. "We could be tasked with flying into a hurricane one day, then responding as an aeromedical evacuation platform in its aftermath."

Brig. Gen. (Dr.) Kory Cornum, commander of Keesler's newly redesignated medical center, greatly appreciates the leadership from Mississippi's Total Force partners from Team Keesler and the Mississippi Air National Guard.

"The work that our CCATT teams are doing with the 403rd Wing and the ANG is truly cutting edge. This is a cost-conscious and efficient use of our respective resources," added Cornum. "Everybody learns how to better care of our patients and our mission and we have fun doing it."