Airman develops antidote to injection confusion

  • Published
  • By Crystal Toenjes
  • 72nd Air Force Base Public Affairs
TINKER AIR FORCE BASE, Okla. (AFPN) --  Knowing how to administer an antidote to a fellow Airman who falls victim to chemical exposure in the field will not be as difficult as before.

A new sticker on the antidote kit designed here, with specific instructions on when and how to administer the antidote for nerve agent poisoning, is helping to alleviate some of the stress of making the decision during exercises.

"While the kit already existed, what wasn't readily available were the instructions on when to use what," said Capt. Kevin Ingram, who designed the sticker after his own unsettling experience during an exercise in May.

"Somebody came in to our tent when we had all our gear on, and he couldn't breathe," Captain Ingram said. "He had some kind of sore on his face, and he was exhibiting all these symptoms. He was basically dying on us."

Captain Ingram, of the 72nd Air Base Wing legal office, and another Airman tried to determine how best to respond to the symptoms being exhibited by the man who was down.

"It gets … difficult sometimes because, obviously, most of us aren't medics and the self aid buddy care isn't something we do every day," Captain Ingram said. "We have different types of chemical and biological agents that people can be affected by and you have different types of treatments."

Quickly being able to determine if the person is suffering from exposure to a nerve agent is important because it calls for one to three injections of atropine using an auto injector in the thigh and described by Captain Ingram as "very painful."

"You don't want to be hitting people with these auto injectors unless you know for sure, and we didn't know for sure," he said.

Part of the reason they were uncertain was because they, like many Airmen, did not have the symptoms for nerve agent poisoning memorized or immediately available to them in some format.

"We had our atropine injectors and we had gloves on, the mask on, all our gear on trying to thumb through our Airman's manual to find what the symptoms are, and the guy is dying," he said. "It wasn't a comfortable situation for us."

Not wanting to feel that way again in an exercise, Captain Ingram developed a nerve agent sticker to put on the injectors so when the package is needed, the symptoms and instructions on how to administer the injections are readily available.

Captain Ingram presented the idea to the deployment commander, and it was implemented across the camp.

He hopes the sticker will be considered for real-world implementation so it not only has the potential for saving the lives of players in exercises, but also Airmen in real-world situations. (Courtesy of Air Force Materiel Command News Service)