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JOINT BASE PEARL HARBOR-HICKAM, Hawaii – The U.S. Air Force 15th Medical Group conducted the Volcano Vitals exercise, an En Route Patient Staging System (ERPSS) as part of a mass casualty drill during Exercise Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) 2024 at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam (JBPHH), July 17.
This is the first time that ERPSS was set up during a RIMPAC exercise.
ERPSS is a large patient holding site, or staging system, where patients are stabilized after receiving their initial and immediate medical care. After that, the patients are evacuated to an appropriate higher level of care in the continental U.S.
In the exercise scenario, an Air Force airfield is attacked by conventional weapons on a nearby island. Casualties are picked up and dropped off on a C-17 aircraft to the nearest location, a flightline at JBPHH where a field response team that consists of a doctor, a nurse and a clinical airman receives and triages the patient. The patients are by bus to an airfield that is set up with ERPSS and an expeditionary medical support team to perform a second triage and prioritize which level of care they need and which designated tent they need to be sent to. Lastly, they are sent to the ERPSS site where they are stabilized until they can be transported to a medical facility.
All of the patients are volunteer U.S. Sailors and Airmen from the base.
“It has been an eye opener of all the limiting factors we have as different services and it showed that we need to train together more,” said U.S. Medical Airforce Planner for RIMPAC, Maj. Pedro Enrique Avila Morales, assigned to 15th Medical Group. “Since we were able to catch these limiting factors through this drill, we can better prepare and get ready to attack anything that comes our way.”
The exercise is an opportunity for partner nations to attend, observe and become educated through the hands-on simulation of the mass casualty drill.
“It’s going to ignite an interest in integration and interoperability,” said RIMPAC Medical Working Group Lead, Lt. Cmdr. Jessica Atterbury. “The integration in a conflict or contingency would allow us to pull in medics from our international partners so that they can also provide such care to the casualties that are coming through.”
“I think it would be pretty beneficial if we could have people from Singapore be part of the medical team just to see how well we work together, how we treat patients and a big one would be understanding the workflow,” said Singapore navy medical operations planner Military Expert 2 Jaclyn Tan. “Ultimately, we cross paths quite often and being able to share experiences would be good. By-and- large there may be similarities but minor differences could make a lot of difference in eventual patient care.”
The intent is for an integrated entity for the next RIMPAC in 2026, adding other services and partner nations to set up sites on other sides of the island and act on that capacity of moving the patients from one entity to next echelons of care.
Twenty-nine nations, 40 surface ships, three submarines, 14 national land forces, more than 150 aircraft and 25,000 personnel are participating in RIMPAC in and around the Hawaiian Islands, June 27 to Aug. 1. The world's largest international maritime exercise, RIMPAC provides a unique training opportunity while fostering and sustaining cooperative relationships among participants critical to ensuring the safety of sea lanes and security on the world's oceans. RIMPAC 2024 is the 29th exercise in the series that began in 1971.
| Date Taken: | 07.17.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 07.18.2024 19:15 |
| Story ID: | 476568 |
| Location: | JOINT BASE PEARL HARBOR-HICKAM, HAWAII, US |
| Web Views: | 183 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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