Page 68 - RADC 2017

Exercise Combined Joint Atlantic Serpent
Maj Verity Brown, RADC
When a trawl came out for various roles
on a US-lead medical exercise, Ex COMBINED JOINT ATLANTIC SERPENT (CJAS), I decided to throw my hat in the ring for the Med IS observer-mentor role. A joint exercise in the US was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up. I wasn’t selected for that role but as an RAF dental nurse had also shown interest I was offered a space to form a dental team.
From reading the force generation order it was hard to understand exactly what the exercise was about or gauge what value I could add but I was excited nonetheless. Once we gathered at Brize Norton for
our initial brief, Ex CJAS started to make sense. It was an
interoperability
exercise to answer
the question: can
we operate with the
Americans with the US
as a lead nation?
We flew out to the
US and made our way
to Ft McCoy in Wisconsin where we were welcomed by the command team running the US Exercise GLOBAL MEDIC. They showed us how they had various medical assets positioned around the exercise space. Of greatest interest to the UK contingent was the Navy Role 3 Emergency Medical Facility (EMF), where most of the clinical personnel were to be based. To
my delight I was told the 143rd Dental Company had several clinics of different sizes dispersed around the area and I would be joining them.
We deployed out to Troop Assembly Area (TAA) Liberty and arrived at the EMF just as the “MAS CAL!” alarm was going off. It was an exciting time to see the facility spring into life as the night shift (bleary-eyed) arrived to bolster the effort, and patients (actors and dummies) were moved through the hospital at great speed. We were then taken to our accommodation and found we were staying in air-conditioned tents with actual beds - comfy!
The next day I was shown (hidden at the very back of the EMF) an Army Dental Team. This was their Forward Dental Team, consisting of 2 Dental Officers and 3 Dental Assistants (DA).
They showed me
their facility and
their equipment,
and we spent
time discussing
what I would like to achieve while I was
in Wisconsin. I was completely enamoured
by their portable dental kit and spent a good portion of my time exploring the portable capability with my US counterparts.
I had been working on a Forward Dental SOI when I was in 5 Armd Med Regt and was delighted to find such a neat little bit
of kit in existence. I was very excited, but in my defence, so were the Americans. It’s not every day you get to play with solar-powered dental kit small enough to fit in a bergen.
I was taken over to the main dental clinic and shown around their 3-chair facility complete with 4 DOs, 6 DAs, one Dental
Lt Col Joe Cheever, the next Commander of 143rd, was delighted with his RADC flash
Hygienist, and a Practice Manager. They were running scenario after scenario from
a training manual, then had a few role- players thrown into the mix for the observer- mentors to test the dental teams on. I
dived into the training and found myself in the middle of the scenarios. Before I knew it my ‘patient’ started to fit and we had a medical emergency to deal with. No sooner had we packaged this patient off to hospital than a ‘severe weather warning’ scenario was called and we evacuated to the storm shelters- a hectic start to the exercise!
The days at TAA Liberty were always busy but brilliantly varied. I grew used to broken sleep as the “MAS CAL” alarm went off every night for the next 3 nights. On one occasion, at a 2am call out, I finished in the ER and packaged the last patient off, I got back to the accommodation and my head just touched the pillow before the next was called. My HQ colleagues were laughing as I had to get back into kit and traipse back to the EMF.
The Dental Team introduced me to the 143rd Dental Company HQ, headed by Col Patrick Foley. An entire HQ dedicated solely to the dental capability was a lot to get my
The EMF operating room during a mass casualty scenario
66 RADC BULLETIN 2017
I was completely enamoured by their portable dental kit...
MILITARY EXERCISES