Airmen, Junior ROTC cadets 'victims' in casualty exercise

  • Published
  • By Tech. Sgt. Scott Wakefield
  • OL-A, Det. 4, Air Force News Agency
ROYAL AIR FORCE LAKENHEATH, England (AFNEWS) --  Airmen from the First Term Airmen Center here and cadets from the base's high school's Junior ROTC program volunteered to be victims in a mass casualty exercise for the base's emergency responders.

To make the scenario more realistic, "wounds" were applied to the volunteers. Junior ROTC cadet Jeffery Cole believes it is important to help out in the community whenever possible, especially in scenarios like this that can help save lives.

"It gives (responders) a better understanding of what to do in case anything like this ever happens," he said.

The scenario called for a car to explode near a bus full of high school students on a tour of the base flightline. While most of the teens were able to get off the bus, some were left on to see how responders would be able to evacuate them. They also had mannequin victims pinned in a junked car, so the firemen could use their tools to extricate them.

Tech. Sgt. Valincia Western was one of the exercise evaluation team members from the hospital. She said even though the exercise was for a mass casualty accident, lessons learned during the scenario could help out in other situations.

"The incident had a vehicle exploding next to a bus full of kids. That could have easily been an (improvised explosive device) down range," she said.

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