New Mexico Guard aviators ‘Steal from the Reaper’

By Army Sgt. Daniel Schroeder

25th Combat Aviation Brigade

CAMP DWYER, Afghanistan - “Medevac, medevac, medevac” comes over the radio as flight crews from Company C, 1st Battalion, 171st Aviation Regiment, New Mexico Army National Guard run out to a UH-60 Black Hawk, start it up and take to the skies in response to the request for medical evacuation.

The standard for medevac missions are to launch the aircraft in 15 minutes and to get the patient to a medical facility within one hour. According to Army Lt. Col. Christopher Holland, the 1-171 commander, this Guard unit maintained a 99.9 percent success rate of achieving that standard.

Over the past 12 months, Soldiers of Company C, located at Camp Dwyer and Forward Operating Bases Edinburgh, Paine and Delaram, have completed more than 1,400 missions; treated more than 1,800 patients; and flew a cumulative total of more than 3,900 flight hours from across the four locations.

“The crew chiefs and medics did extraordinary work during the course of the deployment,” said Army Staff Sgt. Chuck McGould, the operations noncommissioned officer in charge. “The ability of these Soldiers to be flexible to any changes, such as geographical separation, injuries … and weather conditions when accomplishing the mission was one of the most valuable qualities of the unit.”

In addition to treating American service members, the medics also tended to International Security Assistance Forces partners and Afghan National Security Forces, as well as Afghan civilians of all ages.

Some of those calls left long lasting memories on the Soldiers of Company C long after their missions were complete.

“I remember two medevac calls we got when I was on shift,” said Army Sgt. 1st Class Jerry Moya, a flight medic with the unit. “We responded to the call of a 7-year-old local Afghan girl who had been burned by oil and a 5-year-old boy with a head injury. The innocence of the children, being caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, causes the memory [to] stick with you.”

The Soldiers of Company C come from different backgrounds, allowing them to bring different experiences and knowledge to the team. Their careers, ranging from a curriculum implementation school administrator to a sales manager for a tool company, brought diverse knowledge to the team as well.

“With all the diverse backgrounds and skills of the Soldiers in the unit, it is possible to find someone that has some knowledge about anything,” Holland said.

The Soldiers showed their dedication to the medevac mission by continuing to stay on top of maintaining the aircraft, equipment, and themselves.

“Our mission out here is all about the Marine, troop, or person on the battlefield,” Holland said. “When the crews react to a mission, they go by the motto ‘we will be there and be there fast.’ They have done a great job of getting the job done each and every time.”

With the last 12 months of medevac missions conducted, the Soldiers of Company C, 1-171 can return to their families and friends back in the states knowing they gave all they had helping those in need and living up to the unit motto, “Stealing from the Reaper.”

Medevac Initiatives Save Lives in Afghanistan

By Donna Miles

American Forces Press Service

FORT DETRICK, Md., March 22, 2011 – New ambulances designed to negotiate Afghanistan’s rough, narrow roads, kits that quickly convert standard combat vehicles for casualty evacuation and state-of-the-art field medical packages are improving battlefield medicine and saving lives, an official involved in developing and fielding the new equipment reported.

“What we are doing is getting better technology far forward to the wounded, and as a result, we are seeing a decrease in mortality,” Jaime Lee, a product manager at the U.S. Army Medical Materiel Development Activity’s Medical Support Systems Division, told American Forces Press Service.

“We have improved getting care to the soldier in that far forward area, … and getting it to him in that ‘golden hour’ –- that first hour after he has been wounded,” he said.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has pressed hard for the past two years to bring medical care in Afghanistan in line with what’s available for U.S. troops in Iraq. This includes medevac capabilities that ensure wounded troops get advanced medical care within one hour of their injury -– a factor that medical experts agree makes a major difference in survival rates.

The Army Medical Materiel Development Activity has been hard at work supporting that initiative, with several new projects under way to support joint urgent requirements identified in the combat theater, Lee said.

One, developed in cooperation with the mine-resistant, ambush-protected, all-terrain-vehicle program office, is an M-ATV-like ambulance specifically designed to traverse Afghanistan’s demanding terrain. The first 250 are scheduled to go into production this summer and are expected to be fielded this fall, Lee reported.

Unlike the MRAP ambulances in Afghanistan that were designed to operate in Iraq, the M-ATV-like versions are being built from the ground up for conditions in Afghanistan. They have improved suspension systems and offer more mobility and speed than the MRAP models.

Each of the new ambulances is designed to hold two litter patients and several ambulatory patients, Lee said. It’s equipped with state-of-the-art field medical supplies organized according to injury, including breathing problems, bleeding, hypothermia and broken bones.

Unlike in the past, when medics always had to organize their own supplies, the components for the new ambulances arrive in the theater ready to use. “What we have done here is take a whole bunch of subject-matter experts and configure it to a standard format,” Lee said. “Now, when the medic gets it, he pulls it straight out of the box, hangs it up and is ready to go. He knows exactly where everything is.”

The medical kit bag hangs inside the ambulance, but because its components are attached using fabric fasteners, medics can easy pull them off when necessary to treat patients outside the vehicle, Lee said.

The M-ATV-like ambulance includes another first: an oxygen concentrator that creates medical-grade oxygen from ambient air. The benefit is two-fold, Lee explained. Gone are the bulky oxygen tanks that, if hit by a fragment, could turn into a projectile and kill passengers in the vehicle. The oxygen concentrator also eliminates the logistics burden of having to refill oxygen bottles in the combat theater.

But in cases where an ambulance isn’t on the scene to evacuate a wounded warrior immediately, troops now are gaining a new “scoop and run” capability to get the casualties to advanced-level care more quickly.

The Army Medical Materiel Development Activity helped to develop a new casualty evacuation, or CASEVAC, kit that converts any M-ATV into an ad-hoc casualty evacuation platform within a matter of minutes. Each portable kit contains two spine boards with restraint systems and litter straps to transport wounded warriors to the vehicle. Troops can then use their personal first-aid kits to begin initial care while transporting the casualty transported to an evacuation point.

The goal, Lee said, is for every M-ATV in Afghanistan to be equipped with the new kits. About 300 were delivered last year, with another 1,800 expected to be delivered this summer. “This will have a significant impact on the force and will really help to evacuate casualties,” Lee said.

In recognition of their work in developing these much-needed capabilities, Lee and the rest of the Army Medical Materiel Development Activity’s Medical Support Systems team received the 2010 National Security and International Affairs Medal. The award recognizes federal employees for significant contribution to the nation in activities related to national security and international affairs.

“In my opinion, the work that [the Medical Systems Support Division] does has been absolutely critical to our military’s mission in Iraq and Afghanistan,” said Army Col. Russell E. Coleman, commander of USAMMDA, who nominated them for the award. “The CASEVAC and medical evacuation capabilities that they have fielded have saved the lives of many of our deployed servicemembers, and it is an accomplishment worthy of recognition.”

Time Critical for Medevac Crews

By Pfc. Monica K. Smith, USA
Special to American Forces Press Service

Nov. 27, 2007 - "Medevac! Medevac! 2nd Up." As the call comes over the radio, the living room of the pilots, crew chiefs and medics of Company C, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Aviation Regiment, springs to life. Soldiers scramble to grab their gear and run to the Black Hawk helicopters that will carry them to the site where a patient waits for a lift to 25th Combat Surgical Hospital, in Baghdad.

Speed is key to these medical evacuation soldiers whose sole mission is to transfer patients to medical facilities at Baghdad and Balad.

"Time is the most important (element)," said Chief Warrant Officer Travis Powell, a pilot in Co. C. "We take pride in trying to be the fastest aircraft off the ground."

The medevac company is allotted 15 minutes from the initial call to when the aircraft is off the ground, but for Co. C the time from the call to "wheels up" is less than 10 minutes said Sgt. Reid Carpenter, a flight medic with Co. C. Patients are usually picked up within 40 minutes depending on the pick-up site, Carpenter said.

The medevac company picks up three classes of patients: urgent, priority and routine. Urgent patients typically have gunshot wounds, and the pilots have no more than an hour to move the patients to a medical facility. Priority patients have four hours to be moved, but have the potential to become urgent. Routine patients are those whose circumstances are not life threatening, such as a doctor's appointment. The majority of patients are urgent and priority from gun shot wounds or Humvees rolling over an improvised explosive device, Powell said.

To conserve life-saving time, the company prepares the aircraft and gear in advance. A preflight run-up of the aircraft begins at 6 a.m. daily, when a health indicator test is performed on the engines, radios are set, equipment is loaded, and gear is sitting ready in the cockpit.

"We have a dedicated phone for medevac calls," said Capt. Shane Miller, of Co. C, 2-3 Aviation Regiment. "When the call comes, the (pilot) and crew chief go directly to the aircraft to run up the aircraft, while the other pilot gets information on the patient and where to pick them up. Then it's 'Go! Go! Go!'"

The ground units also assist in speeding the process of transporting patients. Ground units provide a pinpoint eight-digit grid coordinate and mark landing areas to signal pilots so the units are not searching for a place to land.

"We fly as fast as the aircraft will go," Powell said. "It's pretty exciting. Speed is the essence (of our job)."

(Army Pfc. Monica K. Smith is assigned to 3rd Combat Aviation Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division.)