Page 13 - RADC Bulletin 2019

MILITARY EXERCISES
16 Medical Regiment Dental Team on Exercise LCpl Stefanie Ferris RADC
On the 14th of March 2019, Major Tyrrell and myself deployed to Friday Woods training area with 16 Medical Regiment MRS (medical reception station) to conduct 16X Role one validation. This exercise gave us the chance to deploy and operate our new DOU (dental operating unit) out in the field, and address the
new challenges it presented, such as condensing and establishing a dental team with a complete dental equipment table within a single land rover and trailer. We made a light version of the kit by only taking out the boxes that we needed to provide emergency dental treatment,
this made life a lot easier when it came to loading our kit into the land rover and trailer.
16 Med is unique within the AMS with
the expectation to be able to deploy operationally in a light role air manoeuvre capability, which is key in fulfilling our unit’s mission statement. This means it’s important for us to have light kit as the expectation
is that it will get put in a helicopter for deploying out on the ground.
After a short insertion, by foot, onto
the training area the MRS was rapidly established to full operating capability. This involved initially putting up two 12x12 tents as the PHTT (primary health treatment team), so that if the MRS were to receive casualties immediately treatment would be
able to be delivered straight away. This took us 20 minutes to deploy. We then put up
an 18x24 tent as the ward bay for patients and then, finally, 3 more 12x12 tents for dental, physio and isolation. The full set up took us approximately 2 hours to complete. We then began receiving a variety of dental emergency casualty simulations likely to be experienced on operations.
This exercise also presented us the opportunity to test and demonstrate the use of the NOMAD X-ray on an actual sheep’s mandible found in the local vicinity, demonstrating a fundamental diagnostic capability we can operate in an austere environment, with only a 12x12 tent as shelter. We also received a mass casualty
scenario at the end of the day, so it was all hands on deck - Major Tyrrell and myself helped at the front of house to separate the T1, T2 and T3 casualties, disarm them of any weapons and log who was entering into the MRS. We also helped the medics with their treatment to these casualties where possible.
Everyone within the MRS was given the opportunity to go up in a Chinook helicopter. In this instance it was used as training to practice a casualty evacuation scenario, but it was also a good opportunity for everyone to experience and see Colchester from
the sky. It was great to have been given
the chance to do it and it was such an adrenaline rush!
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