Page 29 - QARANC Vol 20 No 1 2022

The Gazette QARANC Association 29
Testing our skills at Autumn Serpent exercise
In October I deployed with my unit Joint Hospital Group (South East) on Autumn Serpent, an exercise aimed at boosting our military knowledge and skill, as many of us had not been able to do most of the activities since before the pandemic.
The exercise was comprised of lessons both in the classroom and the field, followed by a consolidation period where we put all our newly acquired skills into practice.
Some of the activities included Chemical Biological Radiological and Chemical (CBRN) training, mass casualty simulations, prolonged field care exercises, map reading and Basic Close Combat Skills (BCCS) training.
The lessons throughout the week were well prepared and delivered to a high standard, which enabled me and the rest of the unit to learn at a much higher level than usual. This was excellent for me as I always want to further my own knowledge.
Many of the lessons were an opportunity to remind and revise rather
than the first time being taught, which then helped me to guide some of the newer members of the unit by helping them where they didn’t understand certain things.
During the consolidation period, I was nominated as the Second in Command (2iC) for my section alongside Cpl Winpenny, in Command (IC). We performed to a high standard together and as the day progressed our leadership skills had improved using the work on points which were given throughout the various stands.
My favourite was probably the section attack combined with the mass casualty stand; this was because I could draw back on previous experiences from my time in the Royal Armoured Corps (2014 – 2018) prior to transferring to the QARANC as a HCA in 2018. This made it easier for my section commander to take the enemy position and deal with any casualties we had sustained during the attack.
The mass casualty stand was always going to be hectic, however I think as a section we remained calm and broke down a very busy situation into one in which we would usually deal with in our everyday clinical practice in the emergency department.
I started by delegating people to go out left and right and triaging any casualties found. Once we had an accurate number of casualties and all had been triaged, I then went round under the direction of the IC
and started to task other members of the section to treat the more severe casualties and collate them into an area where if needed prolonged field care could be given.
However, we then came under contact during this serial which then unfortunately meant field care had to be suspended until we dealt with the new threat.
Overall, this exercise has taught all of us key leadership skills as well as pushing us outside our comfort zones and has enabled all personnel to command troops at a low level whilst out in the field.
LCpl Ryan Lowe, HCA, JHG(SE)