ROYAL AUSTRALIAN AIR FORCE BASE TINDAL, Australia -- When a Navy corpsman or flight surgeon treat patients at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan, they most likely do so in a clinic during sickcall hours.Corpsmen and flight surgeons, from MWSS-171, experienced search-and-rescue winch training during Exercise Southern Frontier 2013.
Southern Frontier is an exercise hosted by the Royal Australian Air Force in the Northern Territory. U.S. Marine Corps participation consists of elements of Marine Aircraft Group 12, 1st Marine Aircraft Wing, III Marine Expeditionary Force operating at Royal Australian Air Force Base Tindal.
“We are part of (Exercise Southern Frontier’s) search-and-rescue team,” said Petty Officer 3rd Class Jayney Hoegh, a corpsman with MWSS- 171. “We did training to prepare us for an emergency. I don’t have much experience with (search- and-rescue) so we are doing the training in case anything were to happen.”While Hoegh and her fellow sailors are not actually doing the winching, they learned to apply their skills during a medical response situation involving helicopter support.
“There is an actual winching team with the search-and-rescue unit,” said Hoegh. “They help us get to the patient. They put us on the ground, we grab the patient, get him stabilized, and then they put him on the helicopter and take him to the nearest medical facility.”
Once on the ground, the corpsmen take action by assessing the patient and treating identified conditions. Hoegh said she learned from the SAR team how to assess the patient in order to stabilize them for the flight, and the importance of treating the patient in a time efficient and effective manner before getting them on the helicopter.
For Hoegh, the training was an experience, however, for others like Petty Officer 2nd Class Raymundo Soria, the lead corpsman for MWSS- 171, it’s his future.Soria, who is scheduled to attend Navy SAR training, said the opportunity to work with the Australians gave him an inside look at just how demanding the job is.
“I see how physical it can be, coming down and physically assessing the patient and getting them back up,” said Soria.
“It really is a lot of work and definitely challenging.”
Soria said some of the things he enjoyed about the training were getting familiar with SAR exercisesand becoming comfortable in the air.
“I got more excited, and a more in depth look at search and rescue,” said Soria. “I respect it a lot more. I’ve always respected it, but I definitely got to see what they do now, and it’s amazing.”