United Fight: Combat medics provide aid, support to PRT mission

Published May 8, 2009
By Staff Sgt. Stacia Zachary
USAFCENT Combat Camera News Team

FORWARD OPERATING BASE GARDEZ, Afghanistan (AFNS) -- Air Force medical technicians working with the Provincial Reconstruction Teams here are working outside their comfort zone.

Here, these Airmen aren't simply medical technicians, they are combat medics. And with this new role comes new responsibilities.

"I am working in a completely opposite spectrum of my career field," said Senior Airman Michael Davidson, a medic with the Paktya PRT. "Here I am a hands-on medic who is solely responsible for the care of my team."

At stateside bases, medical technicians typically have a structured work week. For deployed combat medics, though, the work is anything but routine. The Airmen are expected to be able to respond to life or death situations, diagnose problems and prescribe medications while working in an unfamiliar, and often fast-paced, environment.

"This deployment has tested me and opened my eyes to another element of medical care," Airman Davidson said. "Here, people look to me for more than just taking their temperature. Here, they trust me with their life and I trust them with mine."

In order to deploy as a combat medic, medical technicians must go through two weeks of training at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, as well as combat casualty training and advanced medical training for three months at Fort Bragg, N.C.

This training is meant to prepare the medics for situations they may find themselves in while deployed.

"Whenever there is a mission that requires going outside the wire, we gear up and ride along," Airman Davidson said. "We need to be ready to respond to any situation and sometimes that means deciding who gets medical attention and who dies."

On one mission to Bagram Air Field, Afghanistan, the medics and security forces elements were traveling in mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles for a supply run. It was the dead of night, it was cold, visibility was limited and travel was slow.

Suddenly, the convoy began taking fire.

"Our gunner dropped straight down out of the turret," said Tech. Sgt. John Tong, Paktya PRT medical noncommissioned officer in charge. "It turned out that he was just taking cover but I learned that I needed bags geared for specific situations, like one for a gunshot wound. That situation prepared me for the time when it's real."

As combat medics, deployed Airmen are bringing a new face to the medical technician career field.

"It's whole new game when you deploy," Airman Davidson said. "As a combat medic, I fight alongside the people I am (tasked) to save."

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