944th medics participate in full scale disaster drill

  • Published
  • By Contributed Article
  • 944th Aeromedical Staging Squadron
Luke Air Force Base, Ariz. --  The 944th Fighter Wing was one of many Arizona state, local and federal agencies that participated in a full-scale exercise simulating a major earthquake scenario Dec. 9 in California and Arizona. 150 patients were processed through 26 participating hospitals including 25 people loaded on and off aircraft and transported to various hospitals. This was the largest exercise in Arizona this year.

"Although we never want to think of disasters like this happening," said Lt. Col. Michael Chesser, 944th Aeromedical Staging Squadron medical technician. "We can take comfort in the knowledge that so many people are working daily to be ready to mitigate the devastating effects of events like this.

The exercise began with Northern California's medical capabilities being devastated and overwhelmed with casualties seeking care. The purpose of this event was to evaluate the Phoenix NDMS Federal Coordinating Center (FCC) Plan, Phoenix Regional Metropolitan Medical Response System (MMRS), NDMS Hospitals, VA-Department of Defense (DOD) contingency plans and Air National Guard (ANG) plans, and assess associated player actions against current response plans and training.

Approximately 40 agencies representing the Arizona National Guard, NDMS hospitals, emergency medical services, local ambulance providers, and fire departments participated from throughout the Metro area.

If another region of the country was hit by a major disaster resulting in large numbers of casualties and significant loss of their infrastructure, how prepared would Arizona be in providing evacuation medical support for such a catastrophe? Fortunately, the National Disaster Management System (NDMS) was established for such a devastating event. NDMS is a federally coordinated system that augments the Nation's medical response capability, supporting military, State and local authorities in dealing with the medical needs of such events. The basic concept is when one part of the nation suffers a huge blow to its infrastructure, other areas can receive evacuees and provide for their immediate needs.

The 944th Aeromedical Staging Squadron's Critical Care Air Transport Team (CCATT) from Luke Air Force Base also participated in the exercise. The CCATT is a highly proficient three-person emergency medical response unit consisting of a physician, a critical care nurse and a respiratory technician who are specially trained and equipped to deploy to any forward location and evacuate critically ill and wounded patients while maintaining an ICU level of care en route. These teams are trained to use any available aircraft or other sufficiently large vehicle to perform this task. CCATT's are designed to be able to care for up to six critically ill patients including three on ventilators utilizing a streamlined and highly portable equipment package. Lt. Col. Chesser, Maj. Kathy Miller and Staff Sgt. Christopher Martin are the current members of the 944 Aeromedical Staging Squadron's CCATT. Major Miller was unable to participate in this exercise due to military duties out of state and was replaced by Capt. Majella "J" Vito. Captain Vito is a cardiology cath lab nurse at the VA and also a former Air Force Air Evacuation nurse who served in Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm.

The lead agent locally for the NDMS is the Phoenix VA Health Medical Center and is responsible for the FCC and will have the responsibility for patient reception for future real life contingencies at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport. For this exercise metropolitan response teams from local fire departments performed the reception and triage function. The Arizona Air National Guard's 161 Air Refueling Wing is the host unit for these activities and headquartered at Sky Harbor. Colonel Chesser is a physician at the VA and is the principle clinician involved in the VA's emergency response plans. However, for this exercise, his team was asked to participate as an Air Force CCATT as a large magnitude domestic disaster like this will involve multiple Air Force air evacuation units and coordination from the Global Patient Movement Requirements Center at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois.

"Having our non-DoD disaster response agencies get more exposure to the military processes for casualty movement is crucial as the same capabilities that we use to rapidly move our sick and wounded out of the battle space and to more definitive care out-of-theater can be brought to serve everyday people in the event of catastrophes like this," said Chesser. "Our primary role as CCATT is to augment the Air Evac missions and provide a critical care component. This exercise was an excellent opportunity for us to coordinate with two different Air Guard units as well as demonstrate Air Force capabilities for our non-military partners."

For this exercise, Miriam Ramos, one of the California VA regional emergency managers was selected to play the role of a critically wounded patient who required extensive ICU care from trauma associated with the earthquake and needed to be brought from California to Arizona on an Air Force C-130 cargo aircraft. Ramos found herself strapped to a standard NATO litter decked out with an array of monitoring and supportive medical equipment. After being loaded onto the C-130 she was then off loaded and processed rapidly through the triage area before the team loaded her into a waiting ambulance. The team then loaded her and transported her to the Phoenix VA Medical Center where she finally ended up in the ICU there.

"We provide complete care for our patients from one ICU to the next until the point where we provide direct hand off to the receiving ICU team and then pack up our gear." said Sergeant Martin.

Across the board, this proved to be a very successful exercise. Multiple participants from agencies around the country will be putting this experience towards planning their own exercises and shaping their response plans based on lessons learned here.