Jayme sat in the corner of the classroom watching her ten advanced placement corpsmen practice working in teams of five; one or two of which were playing patient. The subject today was spinal immobilization. The lecture was an hour long and the practical was broken into three thirty-minute application. During that time primary and secondary exams of the patient had to be done while the rest was in immobilization and reassessment and transport.
Following this session she had twenty basic corpsmen to work with on their primary and secondary assessments. She sat grading assignments from the basic's group. She startled when the klaxon sounded. Everyone stopped and stood while command announced, "There is a mass casualty incident on the heavy artillery field at Camp Anderson. Pilots ready Hawkes one and two. Teams 2 &3 prepare for action. Coordinates ready on pilots request. Estimate 30 injured personnel. Move!" K'Tag's voice barked through the PA system.
Jayme looked around and ordered, "Sgt. Ronning, you and the rest of team 1 are assigned to the infirmary to prepare for casualties, and to man Hawk one if need be. I'm responding with the rest of the group in Hawks 2 &3." She paused, her people were moving out. She left the classroom and paused in the infirmary long enough to pick up her secondary kit and move to organize those responding from the dock. She had her units communications gear out and on a command channel spoke with K'Tag, "What's the story, Lieutenant?"
He looked around and then spoke into the communications station that was set up for watching and monitoring the Hawks on missions, Currently Roxxane Cummings was on duty, but the voice that responded to her was his, "This is a MCI--Drill. I repeat this is a drill. Your contact on planet will be Sgt. Corran."
"Received." She slowed her pace to a walk and noted the two neat lines of corpsmen waiting to board. If this hadn't been such a high priority they would have been 3 or 4 man teams, and everyone would be aboard and launched, but they were waiting for a full roll out of personnel. "Board your ships, combat seating." Jayme entered hawk 2 and took her place at the bulkhead behind the cockpit and jacked into the ships communications where she could also monitor surface communications as they neared their trajectory. They launched.
The Hawkes descended through the atmosphere. Camp Anderson was currently on the night side of the planet's rotation. There were a few scattered lights denoting some small houses across the countryside. A larger group of lights were up ahead. They were the main lights at Camp Anderson's HQ building. As they continued towards the coordinates phosphorus flares could be seen burning. There were a few laid out in an "X" indicating a landing position. As the Hawkes came closer, the sky around them lit up with fake phaser blasts. The blasts followed the Hawkes down to the ground. As soon as the Hawkes hit the ground, the teams jumped out of the sides. The Hawke transports lifted off, and the teams immediately began to take cover from the simulated fire. Jayme flipped down the night vision enhancement eyepiece on her helmet, and the forested area immediately became light as day. She saw Corran off to the side with a group of Marines laying down simulated phaser fire off in the other direction.
"We've got thirty injured personnel; five are seriously wounded, another ten or so have sever lacerations. We have at least one with a simulated missing limb, and the rest have lacerations from shrapnel. We've arranged the wounded to the best of our abilities," Corran said with a hint of laughter, "So they're all yours."
Jayme nodded. "I'll radio in the Hawkes to start transporting injured to the closes medical facility." What the forward medical facility really was the main barracks. After this "rescue operation" the volunteers would be allowed to clean up and get some sleep.
"Yes, ma'am." Corran picked up his rifle and headed back to his position on the line, laying down suppressive fire with his sniper rifle.
Jayme watched as her team melted away from her and started triaging and treating the wounded. Several of the Gunny's men were enlisted as able to help with covering fire or carrying the wounded to the Hawks.
Jayme climbed up with some difficulty after MIS-stepping into a hole and wrenching her knee, "Damn, planetary diggers!" She swore as she climbed up and lay on the roof of the APC to watch/and tape her teams maneuvers. At one point her view was blocked by a second vehicleand she climbed down into the bed of the first and jumped six feet between vehicles. There she found a protected view to continue to monitor.
PFC. Rodriguez, SGT. Tayge, and Duncan had three patients and were having to work by flashlights that they had duck taped to their dominant forearms so they could see. They each had medical tricorders and wore a kit which they had unslung from their shoulders and opened. Tayge performed a primary and secondary survey and found his patient had minor lacerations. He called without using his com gear to announce, "one minor. Anyone need help?"
Duncan was a basic corpsmen and his patient had an open abdominal cavity was in shock. "Tayge, mine is critical." Tayge duck walked over with his gear and took the scanner from Duncan as the other man shined his light into the simulated open abdomen... Tayge lookedup and thought Damn, and said aloud, "Duncan. Place an abdominal wet to dry dressing on it and use lots of tape to secure it. I'll start and IV and give the meds. "Team 6 here. We have a critical for transport to base camp ETA to LZ, three minutes." Rodriguez wiped at his own forehead to clear the sweat that was in his eyes. The patient he was treating screamed as the advanced placement corpsmen reduced the broken arm. With some small fold out rods and tape he splinted it and secured it to the patients body.
"Doc, can I have something for the pain," the patient managed to ask though gritted teeth. Rodriguez patted the guys leg and said "No, otherwise I'll have to carry your ass to the medivac ship." He said with a shake of the head but did produce three extra strength acetaminophen and a canteen with water. The trooper took them and managed to stand and help support the other guy with the cuts and bruises, which left the corpsmen to take the critical guy between them in a blanket carry. At that time an artillery shell landed three meters on the far side of the APC. Rodriguez threw himself over the with the abdominal injury patient to shield him from further injury. When the dust cleared all three corpsmen lifted and they moved out headed for the LZ.
The whole mission took an hour and some of the offensive fire was very close to hitting teams as they moved with the wounded or attempted treatment. Finally in her ear piece, she heard, "Captain Alcon, ready for lift off, you coming?" Jayme keyed her mic twice and lowered herself to the ground and this time watching for uneven ground made her way to the Hawke and lifted.
In the air the trip was short but as her three corpsmen worked they lost two patients and several more went into shock. All they could do was work harder. When they landed, they were greeted by two physicians from SB901, Dr. Fletcher, Dr. Barnes. Dr. Ciara Tierro and Counselor Tyran Dinara joined them from the Ronin--with several nurses in tow.
Everyone was re-triaged before being moved from the evac ships by the physicians. Two hours later several of Jayme's team was showing signs of stress from such a realistic drill--she herded them all into the unused mess hall and had them all take seats while Counselor Dinara started on critical incident stress debriefing, The captain rummaged around in some cooks domain but managed to make an urn of coffee and another of juice--enough for a hundred people.
The 30 volunteers had been dismissed to shower and enjoy their day pass. Corran's team had come in during the last twenty minutes of the clean up and were securing their equipment and would be joining the briefing after Tyran was done speaking with her team. Corran and his five senior staff would go over how best to optimize their strategic fire coverage during landings and take off, how to keep from being a target while scurrying around on the ground. Then Jayme would discuss Corrans units handling of the victims until help arrived, what her teams could have done better. She'd already sent a staff member off to find a projector so she could go over the vid she'd recorded from her helmet.
Corran would give his briefing first, since it incorporated a smaller portion of the group. That, and he wasn't known for making long winded speeches. "All right. I have just a few things." Staff Sergeant Hendricks brought the projector into the room. Instead of the video that Captain Alcon was planning on using, Corran did things simple. He turned on the overhead, and began to draw on the projection plate. His drawing was projected on the war behind him. "The layout of the terrain was neutral. There was one large open grass field here," he said, drawing in the field. "On either side there was a slight rise in the terrain, where it dipped off into a more heavily wooded area. The clearing that the Hawkes landed in was under fire from simulated enemy long range weapons fire. As the exercise progressed, the group became encompassed." Corran drew in blue the advancing forces and how they had effectively formed a horseshoe looking line around there position.
"After the Med hawkes were gone, the exercised continued. Two Minibirds came into the area and began to lay down suppressive fire. One full size Hawke landed, and the rest were evac'd out of the area. Overall, simulated casualties were at thirty I believe." Corran looked over to Jayme who nodded at his question. "Thirty casualties. Suppressive fire and close range antipersonnel fire was used well. The enemy, although nonexistent, was well simulated by unmanned training remotes. Effectively, the group on the ground were fighting five to one odds. Overall, I am pleased with the effort." Corran looked up from his drawing at the group of assembled Marines. "If there are no questions I will turn the briefing over to Captain Alcon." No one spoke, up, so Corran stepped aside, and Jayme came up to the projector.
"Thanks Corran for going over the orientation and terrain. Your team recognized the critically injured and moved them so they weren't out in the open. I have to personally say that some of those strikes were damn close. You called for help immediately and the first on the scene were the corpsmen from base. Your assessments were good and you treated for shock and moved patients as little as possible." Jayme pulled a chair around and sat down. Corran gave her shoulder a squeeze as he moved off to take a seat with his guys. "Thirty injured-10 majors, 15 minors, and 5 walking wounded." The programmed tape came on and the images appeared with all of the sights and sounds. Over the next hour she dissected all of the medical teams that she was able to tape up close. She also recorded the loading and lift offs with the injured.
The next half hour she answered questions and called the after action staff of SB901 and Ronin to answer questions and comment on how patients arrive at their end destination. When there were no more comments or questions the senior medical staff sort of wandered in a group. Jayme went to stand but a firm pressure was applied to her shoulder and she looked up and saw Sergeant Corran. "Yes?" Jayme asked him.
Dr. Fletcher said good bye to staff as they headed to the transports for the trip back to their station. He assumed that Corran and Jayme were finishing up business until he noted the look the other man was giving her. "What's up?" Nathan asked the two.
Sighed Jayme tried to shrug Sgt. Corran hand off but that was near impossible so she relaxed and leaned back in the chair, and said to Dr. Fletcher, "I strained my knee."
"Oh." He said. He knelt down in front of her and with his tricorder ran the scan and then with his hands he palpated the joint, and said, "Not strained-- sprained." He looked at the sergeant, and then back at Jayme. "It's fixable." He grabbed her gear and pulled out the deep tissue regenerator and worked for a few minutes. He then said, "Some ice and rest and you're good as new. Are you ready to return to SB901?"
"Yes." The pressure relaxed on her shoulder and helped her stand. Corran said, "I'll call for transportation from here to the air field."
"No! I'm fine. But thank you Sgt. Corran" Everyone walked out and stood in the morning sun, a bird shrilling in the distance, the sounds of troops working out on the field. Corran walked them to the shuttle where her last team was waiting. "Bye, Corran and thank you for your help with this mission." With that she entered and took a seat and Corran cycled the door closed and the engines started up and Jayme took a seat and put her knee up in an empty seat to her right. Fletcher sat the seat to her left and handed her an ice pack out of her kit.