Aeromedical evacuation teams ready to help anytime

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Craig Seals
  • 455th Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs
BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan (AFPN) --  Bagram Air Base aeromedical evacuation teams bring the hospital to the wounded supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. 

The 455th Expeditionary Aeromedical Evacuation Flight has four, three-person teams consisting of a nurse and two medical technicians, with one team ready to go at a moment's notice. 

At any given time, one of these teams is on alert status. Prior to being put on alert status, an AE team is given 12 hours of crew rest. Once those 12 hours are up, their alert status begins for the next 48 hours.

"We have to sign out and let our command know where we are at all times during those 48 hours," said Capt. Michelle Mulberry, a 455th EAEF flight nurse. "Once we are alerted, we have an hour to respond. Sometimes, if the mission is urgent, we have 15 minutes to be ready."

Once alerted and ready to go, the team loads the aircraft with the necessary equipment for their mission. That mission could take them anywhere around Afghanistan.

"We're staged out of Bagram, but we fly all over Afghanistan and sometimes into Kyrgyzstan as well," Captain Mulberry said. "We will go wherever they need us."

Once at their destination, the AE team is met by an ambulance carrying either ambulatory or litter patients, or sometimes both.

"Ambulatory patients are ones who need our care, but can pretty much move on their own," said Master Sgt. Theresa Sheheen, a 455th EAEF medical technician. "Litter patients are on litters and need to be carried and secured on the aircraft."

Once all patients have been secured on the aircraft and the AE team ensures the patients are as comfortable as they can be, they move out.

"At times, the missions make me feel very emotionally vulnerable. It's difficult to see some of the injuries and imagine how they will change that patient's life," Sergeant Sheheen said. "On the flip side, it is very rewarding to know that I am doing something, no matter how small, to make that patient a little more comfortable."

Once the aircraft arrives back at Bagram AB, it's met by an ambulance and medics from the Craig Joint Theater Hospital to take the patients from there.

After the patients have been transferred off the aircraft, the medical equipment is unloaded and it's back to the AE shop.

Paperwork is completed, crews are debriefed and some have a chance to reflect on their day's accomplishments.

"This job is the most rewarding job I have ever done. I work in an ER at home and nothing compares to what we do here," Captain Mulberry said. "I feel like we are such a small part of a big war, and the least I can do is help the wounded get one step closer to home."

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