Casualty Evacuation Chain In Place
Operational Exercise by German KFOR Medical Task Force
Prizren, Kosovo - Thursday, 6 March, 1412 hours, helipad in Camp Prizren:
A helicopter of the "Armée de terre" picks up a severely injured French soldier after he has been previously examined in the German field hospital. "This fellow soldier is back home in his native France this evening," says the pilot knowingly. 1508 hours: An SAR helicopter lands on the helipad, and a German soldier is carefully disembarked on a stretcher. So far, this is reality.
Road traffic accident involving 15 soldiers
"Civilian, cerebrocranial trauma, initially responsive, pneumothorax applied, on artificial respiration, intubated, anesthesized." Another SAR helicopter has landed at 1541 hours. Swiss staff sergeant David C. and a German medical corps captain are along for the ride and hand over the patient to the crew of the waiting military ambulance for transfer to the field hospital. This is not reality anymore.
MASCAL (Mass Casualties) is an exercise - a realistic one. "On this occasion, we can observe that the German medical corps is extraordinarily efficient," points out Lt. Col. (German Navy Medical Corps) Dr. Siegfried Stöss, commander of the German KFOR Medical Task Force.
Over several hours, this battalion-size unit implemented the exercise scenario together with members of other units of the German KFOR contingent, including the Military Police Company. According to the "execution order", one section of the scenario reads as follows: "Road traffic accident involving a civilian car, a bus and a refueling truck. Accident involving 15 persons in the area of Camp Airfield.“
The unit surgeon assesses the situation, makes a visual inspection of the site and transmits his report to the Rescue Coordination Center (RCC); this is followed by an initial triage of the injured, instructions to the arriving rescue assets, reporting of medical information to the field hospital, setting up a helicopter landing site, movement by ambulance, transfer of the patients to the clinic's staff . . . ENDEX: 1710 hours.
This exercise has proven once again that the soldiers can fully rely on their "medics", including in the worst of cases.
(Story by: Text: Captain Michael Schur)
