ok, so i am better now. it was cold but it is starting to warm up.
today i was pulled away from the water team and put with the medical maintenance team to check equipment for the hospital. There is a civilian contract group called RSTMED (Regional Training Sites - Medical) that supports the Army during training missions like this. Today I was able to work with them and setup the Picker X-Ray unit. My "help" was relatively minor but it was Biomed related. After doing some initial setup, we had to stop becaues the final setup requires power to the iso which was not available yet. So after I was done in the radiology iso, I went back to the water team to help them finish.
I definately like being on the water team. Our OIC's (officer's in Charge) gave us an overview of what needed to be done. Laying out water piping is kinda like putting a puzzle together. The lines are separated into clean and dirty water. The clean water lines run from the bladder ot the sinks and then the dirty water line (aka return line) run out from the sinks to a hole in the ground that was predug for us. Our job was to figure out the apprpriate length hoses to run from the ballder to the sinks and then back out to the hole.
The longest hoses are maybe 50ft and there aren't many of them. Part of the water team kit also includes y adpaters to connect three lines togther. We used the long hoses to go from the y adapters to the pumps and used shorter hoses and y adapters to run from the sinks to the long line going to the return pump or bladder. Connecting the hoses and y adpaters together takes strength. The attached pictures show some of the team trying to put them together.
All and all, the experience on the water team was very cool. There is a 4 day class that teaches soldiers everything about how to run water throughout the hospital. I think it would be a fun class to take.
That's all for now.
Love you all!!
Becky
So, question - are you setting up a real Army hospital that someone is going to use at some point, or is this a practice set up that will get taken down later? Is learning to take the setup down part of your training, too?
ReplyDeleteNot that I ever want you to go out into the field, but it seems like if you had to, this is pretty cool stuff to get to do.
HI Brandy,
ReplyDeleteWe are setting up a real Army field hopsital but we are only using it for training scenarios. This week, the clinical teams have been reviewing protocol and setting up their untis to function. Once a day, they run thru a clinical scenario where a patient comes in via helicopter. Next week, we will be in the active training mission.
The patients we'll receive next week will not really be sick/wounded. They will be soldiers from other units here that are participating in other parts of the warrior exercise. The will pretend to be sick/wounded. It should be really cool.
My part is to make sure the medical equipment is operating in mission functional status. It is pretty cool and I am having a good time.
Love ya,
Becky