Lately one of our big projects has been teaching Combat Lifesaver to as many people in the battalion as possible.  Its a priority of the Battalion’s, but they tend to think that a CLS can replace a Medic. This training could mean the difference between life and death for a soldier until a medic can arrive and they need a good high quality course that the students will take seriously. Since I don’t do half-assed training, I focus on giving a serious and intensive course, ask my medics.  So I have been running these 4 day long courses almost every week on top of all our other support requirements.  The feedback has been really excellent and I believe that my personal philosophy on CLS has been making an impact on the quality of the courses.

Anyway, the third or fourth day of the course is made up of Trauma Lanes.  This is where the CLS students treat mock patients in a simulated combat environment.  Until recently this has been the weak point in the course.  We didn’t have a lot of people or training aids. However, the classes have been able to use an awesome combat medic training center since we returned and we have been able to run them through their lanes.  So when I couldn’t get the lanes for this class, I decided I would create the closest thing possible to them.

We blacked out a room, set up the outdoor PA system (with a subwoofer as big as the bed of my truck) inside, acquired the same sound tracks, and moulaged my medics to the point that they looked like Zombies from a George Romero movie.  The room was tossed and an “Embassy Bombing” scenario was set up.  The students donned their full battle rattle, grabbed a CLS bag and lined up at the door.  In groups of four they entered into a pitch black room with extremely loud combat noise, obstacles in their path, wounded screaming and spurting blood, and evaluators yelling at them to hurry up and get moving.  It was a complete success!  By success I mean I heard feedback like, “Intense!" “Glad I am not a Medic.” “A little too real.” I couldn’t have asked for a better result.  Granted we don’t have $60,000 dummies, but we do have soldiers who can give much better feedback to care. 

I wish I had a low-light camera though.  The lanes would have made a great blooper reel at Organizational Day.  Some poor soldiers were just lost and wandering in circles in the dark, some were getting sprayed in the face with fake blood, and there were quite a few other funny moments as well.  I guess that is something I will have to add to the next class.

The important thing is that we accomplished our goal, to train Combat Lifesavers to the highest quality we could so that they could save lives.  I never let anyone forget that it could be themselves getting care from these guys and they would want the best care possible.

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