BAGHDAD - National Guardsmen from Company C, 230th Brigade Support Battalion, 30th Heavy Brigade Combat Team, recently opened a joint trauma training lane at Forward Operating Base Falcon to help train American and Iraqi Soldiers on simulated battlefield medical care.
The outdoor, half-acre lane was designed to be a realistic representation of conditions that Soldiers would face if they took casualties on a mission.
"It is reality-based," said Staff Sgt. Tory Jones, the company's evacuation platoon sergeant. "The environment is set up to look like a city or town in Iraq. We have smoke, sound effects; there's gunfire going off."
"That way, we're able to train in an environment we're going to be in, and not just in a classroom setting," said 1st Lt. Terri Lopez, a trainer with the brigade's medical company. "For most of us, I think, hands on is better."
Lopez said the company's Soldiers initially designed the lane to help them train their counterparts in the Iraqi Army's 17th Motorized Transportation Regiment.
"We just definitely look forward to having the Iraqis train with us," said Lopez, of Raleigh, N.C.
In the short time the lane has been open, three groups of North Carolina National Guardsmen have made the run down the lane. Soldiers in all three groups gave the training good reviews.
"I think it's very effective," said Jones, of Detroit. "It allows them to gain confidence in the skills they've learned and apply them on the battlefield."
The most recent group to go through the lane was made up of Soldiers from the medical company's parent battalion, including Sgt. Shannon Vernagallo of Company B.
"The hardest part' Wearing all the gear," said the Fayetteville, N.C. native. "Having to do everything you do to treat a casualty with all the gear on and your weapon, and everything going, everything happening, everybody screaming, and [you're] trying to maintain focus on what you have to do."
"It's organized chaos for the most part," said Jones.
In addition to the sound effects and smoke grenades, some Company C Soldiers dress in traditional Iraqi clothes, crying, shrieking and getting in the way of Soldiers as they try to provide medical aid or security.
"It's a lot different when you're treating patients in a classroom than it is when you're on the battlefield," said Lopez.
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