BUCKLEY SPACE FORCE BASE –
Airmen from the 140th Medical Group, Colorado Air National Guard, participated in a first-time course in San Diego, Sept. 2-6, 2024.
According to their website, Strategic Operations, Inc. (STOPS) offers “hyper-realistic tactical training services and products to the military, law enforcement, first responders, and other organizations responsible for homeland security.”
“There's a component of actually having a real person,” said U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Lara Johnson, physician assistant, 140th Medical Group, Colorado Air National Guard. She implemented the course after her predecessor, U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Elizabeth Gray, Director of Operations, COANG originally designed it.
The training included “Hollywood” style special effects and practices integrated into live tactical training – explosions, weapons, realistic props, foreign language speaking actors, and casualty actors. The service utilized by the 140th Medical Group was that of a “Cut Suit” which is described as “the most realistic way to simulate the look, feel, and smell effects of severe traumatic events on a live human casualty while allowing first responders and physicians to safely perform real procedures - from the point of injury to treatment en route, and transition of care to surgical intervention.”
The course was customized for the needs of the Medical Group.
“We said we would like to practice deploying technical trauma care, casualty care, damage control, resuscitation, and then also what we call patient movement; en route care of complex casualties in an austere environment,” Johnson said.
STOPS created mass casualty scenarios with living models donning Cut Suits, followed by the group being divided into teams.
“We had surgical teams, pre-hospital teams consisting of the emergency medical service paramedics, then the emergency department situation where we would stabilize a patient for transport or to go to surgery,” Johnson said. We're always looking for better ways to train and to be ready for the next war and for the next combat situation While we do quarterly trauma training within the medical group, it's still not to the level where there's a full simulation. When this opportunity came up, with the ability to customize it to our needs, we jumped on it.”
U.S. Air Force Maj. Melissa Coombs, emergency room physician, 140th Medical Group, Colorado Air National Guard served as the officer in charge of the event and described a highlight being a perimortem cesarean section, which involved a scenario in which the mother had died from severe trauma, but the team had the opportunity to save the baby and had to do so quickly.
“Overall, the whole experience of being able to take patients from the field to the ER, to the OR in these mass casualty, austere settings is valuable training,” Coombs said. “Anything that can simulate a mass casualty without actually having a mass casualty is great.”
Johnson also serves as the National Guard State Partnership Program health action officer for Colorado, as the training was part of a collaboration alongside CONG State Partnership Program countries The Republic of Slovenia and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, as well as a Serbian team that is part of the Balkan Medical Task Force.
“I went to a planning conference with Slovenia following the course, and just hearing the surgeons talk about how realistic and cutting edge that it was, was really great to hear,” Johnson said.
“Working with partner nations was an added benefit,” Coombs said. “I think any time that you can see how other people do things, you're going to learn from that, and learning how to interact with a bunch of different nations, we're going to need that in every conflict we're ever in.” I think anytime you can do that all together is a benefit.”
“I think the stress of those types of situations is really hard to replicate,” she said. “The more you can do that when you're in the real thing, you're not in fight or flight, and can actually function on a high level.”
140th Medical Group is currently preparing for a unit effectiveness inspection, an exercise evaluation, and a deployment in 2025.