Preparing for the worst possible scenario

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Jonathan Hehnly
  • 911th Airlift Wing Public Affairs
Approximately 150 patients were evacuated to the Pittsburgh International Airport Air Reserve Station following a simulated terrorist attack at a large-scale sporting event, during a National Disaster Medical System Exercise, July 12, 2014.

For more than 25 years, the Pittsburgh IAP ARS has served as a reception site for the western Pennsylvania and northern West Virginia area's NDMS exercise. The exercise, which is held every three years, maintains the region's ability to provide emergency medical services in response to a large-scale disaster.

This year, approximately 1,000 people from more than 50 federal, state, and local organizations participated in the joint effort to provide mutual aid to the large number of casualties affected by the simulated attack.

New for the 2014 NDMS exercise was the involvement of the 911th AW's casualty assistance office.

According to Martin Patterson, the chief of casualty assistance at the 911th AW, this may be the first time a casualty assistance office has participated in a NDMS exercise to this degree.

For the exercise, the 911th AW's CA office was actively tasked with the handling of 15 local military casualties in various duty statuses. Patterson described the number of casualties as being more than normal for an exercise.

"Not many bases will do an exercise to this extent," said the retired active-duty Air Force master sergeant with 15-years of CA experience. "It's going to be chaotic, but I want to see the CAST team utilize their resources."

The Casualty Augmentation Support Team is mostly made up of personnel support for contingency operations members who are trained to assist the 911th AW's two casualty assistance representatives with mass casualty situations.

In the event of a large-scale disaster with mass casualties, such as the scenario in the NDMS exercise, the base's casualty assistance representatives have to utilize the CAST in order to support the reporting, notification and assistance requirements of the families involved, said Susie A. Parson, chief of benefits and entitlements, Headquarters Air Force Personnel Center, Casualty Services Branch.

It is the mission of the Air Force Casualty Program to provide dignified, compassionate and humane notification, and assistance to family members and other designated people as promptly as possible after a member's casualty status is determined and reported.

To maintain a timely flow of information during the exercise, CAST members were staged in the patient processing hangar, where they collected the names and casualty statuses of military members as they were received by medical personnel from the six arriving military-transport flights. The information gathered was then relayed to the casualty assistance office where other CAST members immediately started working on the required reports and notification processes.

Casualty reports are required to be completed and sent up the chain of command within four hours of receiving the information. Each casualty requires separate reports, notifications and follow-on assistance, based on their duty status and injury classification.

A casualty is not necessarily a death, but a term that also includes those that are injured or ill. Divided into three categories, a person's casualty status could include being very seriously ill or injured, seriously ill or injured, or not seriously ill or injured.

The CARs and CAST completed the necessary reports and notifications for five VSI, four SI, three NSI, and three deceased military members that were spread between the six flights.

When a military member is determined to be deceased, regardless of duty status, a notification team is sent out to the next-of-kin as soon as possible. The NDMS exercise provided an opportunity for the CAST to simulate briefing and preparing teams to make the notification trips.

"We will all walk away with something beneficial from this," said Renee Casey, a CAST member. "Unless you've done an exercise or until you've deployed or are involved with an actual casualty or crisis, it's hard to know how you'll handle these difficult situations. This could be real-world; this could happen tomorrow. We need to practice and be prepared for a true emergency."

Patterson recommends that military members prepare themselves for emergencies by taking the time to review and update their virtual record of emergency data annually and to call the casualty assistance office with any questions.