Tactical casualty care simulators boost Air National Guard medics readiness

Story by Paul Mann

117th Air Refueling Wing

The battlefield is constantly evolving, requiring service members to adapt to ever-changing and challenging situations through continual training. This is especially true for Aerospace Medical Service Technicians – the Air Force’s field or combat medics – who must be prepared to provide critical care in high-pressure environments.

“These [simulators] are designed to train at all tiers of TCCC,” said Jason Robbins, program director and trainer for Operative Experience.

Tactical Combat Casualty Care (TCCC) is the standard of care for first responders in the Department of Defense and consists of four tiers:

– Tier 1 (All Service Members): This tier is for all military personnel that do not meet the requirements for the higher tiers.
– Tier 2 (Combat Life Saver): This is for combat-oriented personnel.
– Tier 3 (Combat Medic/Corpsman): This is for medical personnel.
– Tier 4 (Paramedic/Provider): This is the highest tier and is for anyone considered a provider to include mid-level providers (nurse practitioners and physicians assistants).

Members of the 117th Air Refueling Wing are actively training on the first two tiers and will expand into Tier 3 later this year after additional medical personnel attend specialized training at an Air National Guard combat readiness training center.

“We are very excited to receive the high-fidelity simulator training today from instructors sent by the National Guard Bureau,” said Col. Pam Carroll, commander of the 117th Medical Group. “This provides us a great opportunity, being able to do in-house training for our En-route Patient Staging Mission for the nurses and medical technicians, accomplishing comprehensive medical readiness requirements at the unit.”

Several 117 MDG nurses and medical technicians were available to attend the initial training with the simulators, gaining hands-on experience by listening to heart sounds, checking pulses, and handling the realistic weight and feel of the high-fidelity simulators.

“All of our medical people will be trained on this,” said Master Sgt. Tammie Atchison, a Health Systems Specialist with the 117 MDG. “We will also be able to use these for base-wide training when we’re training instructors, TCCC for all service members, Combat Lifesaver, and for security forces who need a higher level than typical service members.”

According to Robbins, the simulators are modular, allowing organizations to enhance training scenarios by swapping out limbs. This flexibility enables trainers to simulate amputations, open fractures, and other complex battlefield injuries, providing a more immersive and effective training experience.

“This is like the flight simulator for medics,” said Robbins. “This is where you come and make mistakes, you fail, you reset, and you try again. This is where you bring your medics to learn – to make mistakes here before you cut them loose in the trauma bay.”