Ordinary Army Reserve Soldiers are trained in combat life-saving skills

Members from various units of the U.S. Army Reserve's 372nd Engineer Brigade attended a Combat Life Saver course on January 18, 2020. The course is aimed at better preparing ordinary Soldiers to render emergency first aid to their peers on the battle field, and can supplement the mission of Army Medics.To get more news about ifak army, you can visit rusuntacmed.com official website.

Almost all units in the U.S. Army Reserve have a support, rather than a combat mission. These are engineer, logistics, medical, communications and civil affairs units. On today’s complex battlefield, those missions can still place Army Reserve Soldiers in harm’s way. That is why the Army Reserve encourages its Soldiers to take combat life saver training. The skills it provides have resulted in more rapid, more effective care to their fellow Soldiers.

“It could be anything from a roll over in a vehicle, a gunshot wound, or any kind of shrapnel blow to the Soldier's chest,” said Sgt. Maria Vickers, of the 863rd Engineer Battalion, of Darien, Ill.

Vickers, the course’s lead instructor, explained that CLS teaches three phases of combat medical care. In the first of these, care under fire, a combat life saver works immediately on an injured Soldier to first ensure he or she can breathe, and then to stop or control the bleeding. Then they direct, drag, or carry that Soldier to cover from the continued danger of bullets or flying shrapnel.

This allows the combat lifesaver to work the second phase, known as tactical field care. Here the combat life saver makes continual reassessments of their fellow Soldier's condition. This includes quick determinations on consciousness, control of bleeding, a search for other injuries, and whether the patient can apply self-pressure to a bandage.

The CLS trained Soldier then transitions quickly to the third phase of combat medicine, tactical evacuation. Often times, land transit is too dangerous, too slow, or simply not available. CLS Soldiers are trained to communicate via radio to tactical operations centers in the rear for medical evacuation by helicopter. This is done with a carefully practiced but rapidly deployed message script of nine lines. This “9-Line” conveys the most vital information: Extent of the Soldier's injuries, age, blood type, enemy presence, and landing zone signal method. The message is performed in quick, succinct bursts and takes only moments.

The patient is placed by a trained method onto a folding, portable stretcher, and at least two Soldiers carry this to the waiting chopper, where the patient and stretcher are harnessed for their ride to the nearest combat support hospital.

The greater number of Soldiers having these CLS skills, the greater the chance of survival for each wounded Soldier. In situations where medics are unable to help everyone, having a CLS trained Soldier on hand can mean a faster response, decreased loss of blood, and can serve to expedite evacuation to Forward Resuscitative Teams at CHSs.

Under ideal conditions, all of this can occur in as little as 15 minutes from time of injury. While that may still be a rare achievement, in 2009, then Defense Secretary Robert Gates pushed the so called “golden hour” medical policy; a term already understood in civilian emergency medicine.

This tasked military medicine planners with getting wounded Soldiers to triage and care at CSHs within an hour of being wounded. That meant improvements to the efficiency and accuracy in communication and better overall immediate medical care skill for ordinary Soldiers, Marines, Sailors and Airmen. For the Army, Combat Life Saver training fit the bill.