Keeping it real

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Chad Padgett
  • 436th AW Public Affairs
Dover Air Force Base, Del. - --  More than 17 years ago Terry Kauffman wanted to make scary costumes for his children and help make his house a little more frightening for Halloween, so he learned about moulage, the art of making fake injuries using common items such as wax, latex and fake blood.

Today Mr. Kauffman uses his skills to help Dover Air Force Base and local hospitals give their exercises an extra touch of realism.

"It gives a reality to the exercise. You can only simulate so much," said Mr. Kauffman. "When it comes to the triaging, to actually see a person gashed up or burned, it helps the adrenaline flow and gets the people in the right mode for what they might see."

Mr. Kauffman came out to Dover AFB to perform moulage on 30 participants in a Major Accident Response Exercise.

"In our exercise we had around 30 people and he was done in a couple hours," said Tech. Sgt. Charity Harmon, 436th Medical Support Squadron NCOIC of information systems. "We try to make it as realistic as possible because when folks deploy or are first time responders it's very hard to explain what they are going to see and hear. Being able to do the moulage with people is one of the ways we can get people use to seeing the blood and the different things that come with a traumatic incident rather than just having them read the symptoms off of cards."

While Mr. Kauffman needs to buy some of his supplies, he is able to create a lot of his own supplies at home including latex molds and fake glass.

"You almost have to have a chemistry degree for some of this stuff," said Mr. Kauffman. "I buy clear latex and add my own coloring to make it more realistic. I also make my own fake glass so it breaks really easy and we can make it the size we need. I usually spend a week before making exactly what an exercise needs, depending on if they want a lot of cuts or if they want more broken bones"

Mr. Kauffman has done moulage for more than 15 exercises in the local area, performing 10 at local hospitals and five at Dover AFB. He uses fishing-tackle boxes and larger tool boxes to carry around the necessary supplies, to include multiple bottles of fake blood, to the different exercises.

"We're very lucky to be able to learn from his creativity," said Sergeant Harmon. "He has a lot of things he brings to the table and he really helped make our exercise feel like it was really happening."