Airmen provide comfort, care with aeromedical evacuations

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class David Dobrydney
  • 379th Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs
SOUTHWEST ASIA (AFNS) --  Members of the 379th Expeditionary Air Evacuation Squadron run weekly missions to both Iraq and Afghanistan to either pick up patients or return servicemembers who have sufficiently recovered back to a forward location.

An average of 120 wounded and injured servicemembers are transported each month. Besides the regularly scheduled missions, crews will also fly priority missions at least twice a week, where they must report for duty within an hour of the tasking coming in. If it's an urgent mission, they must report immediately. This means "crews must maintain a high level of mission readiness," said Chief Nurse Lt. Col. Elaine Jacksland, deployed here from the New York Air National Guard.

The squadron is unique in that it does not have pilots or specific aircraft assigned to it. Taskings come from the Aeromedical Evacuation Control Team located in the Combined Air and Space Operations Center. The Air Mobility Division will then select an available aircraft for any given mission.

"There is no medical equipment on the aircraft, so we bring everything on board," said 379 EAES Commander Col. Ada Johnston, a flight nurse who flies as often as her schedule permits. "The mission can become very intense, working in the heat, getting the equipment loaded, setting up the litters and preparing for patients."

Each flight requires up to 800 pounds of gear, including oxygen tanks and power converters to allow the medical equipment to operate on the aircraft. Everything has to be loaded and arranged to accommodate patients that are ambulatory as well as those on litters. Regardless, the EAES members will have everything in place prior to patients boarding.

Patients air evacuated by the 379 EAES are flown to a location where the appropriate level of treatment can be received. That could mean returning here to Southwest Asia for treatment in-theater, but in urgent cases where life, limb or eyesight is at risk, the squadron will fly patients to Germany for further definitive care.

The squadron's regularly scheduled missions are flown using C-130 Hercules transport aircraft, but the squadron members need to be familiar with other airframes as well.
"If it's an urgent mission, we'll fly on a C-17 [Globemaster III] intertheater," Colonel Johnston, also deployed here from the New York Air National Guard, said. "Crews can also fly on the KC-135 if necessary."

Regardless of the type of aircraft used to transport patients, the 379 EAES crews are most concerned about the health and welfare of their patients.

"Especially on a C-130, there's a lot of vibration so we need to make sure patients are comfortable and have everything they need," said Staff Sgt. Jaclyn Hatchett, an aeromedical evacuation technician deployed here from Ramstein Air Base, Germany. "That means checking dressings on wounds, making sure patients receive prescribed medicines, as well as monitoring the oxygen level in the aircraft. If the oxygen saturation level drops below a certain point, patients can become light-headed or feel other negative effects."

"When you think about the stresses of flight -- the barometric change of pressure, vibration, noise, temperature extremes, if someone is sick or has battle injuries -- those stresses on the body can intensify someone's pain," Colonel Johnston said.

"Comfort is always our main concern," Sergeant Hatchett said. "We do everything possible to ensure our patents are comfortable and given the best care possible."