Exercise role players help responders train for disaster

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Matthew Hubby
  • 436th Airlift Wing Public Affairs
DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Del. --  Disasters are uncommon events, they happen rarely. But, when they do happen, they are terrible events that cause much damage and injury to any area affected by it.

Training can help first responders in such events, by allowing them to experience the events without the risk of death or injury that they could normally face.

Role players act in accordance to injuries and situations that could come up in a possible disaster, giving the responders a real body to work with.

Role players assisted the training of first responders during an exercise June 8-10 ending in a large event with more than 100 role players taking to the Eagle's Nest picnic area to act as casualties.

"It was an odd experience," said Airman 1st Class Mark Subora, 436th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron crew chief. "I can't really say I've ever had minor abdominal lacerations before, so it was defiantly a new experience. But it felt good to help my fellow airmen out in their training. Hopefully they got some good training out of it, and I know if we are ever in an incident that such took place, I can put my trust in them to make sure everything is under control."

The largest leg of the exercise, which involved a chemical explosive incident, took the combined effort of more than 100 role players. Many were severely injured and the medical group triaged any person involved in the event. All of the victims were decontaminated and many of the bystanders were as well.

"I believe that we all acted in our roles," said Airman 1st Class Shane Ramlow, 436th AMXS crew chief. "I was selected to be an uninjured bystander, and when they tried to get all of us to be decontaminated, the group of us reacted naturally and tried to resist. The medical group and other emergency responders reacted accordingly, took control, and got us all through decontamination."

After all the bystanders and victims were decontaminated, they were triaged and placed in varying levels of injury: Green for minor, yellow for serious and red for critical.

The medical group then bussed or ambulanced the injured in order of most injured to least, sending them all to the closest hospital that could handle their injury type.

"It was a different change of pace," said Airman Ramlow. "It was good to be able to see firsthand how our medical staff would react to a real world event of this magnitude. I felt that they did a good job, but there were some areas that they could have improved and given that this was an exercise it gave them an opportunity to see where they could improve."