Now that we're not on the MEU anymore, we're responsible for providing a standby aircraft every day from dawn until dusk. That aircraft must be able to launch with 60 minutes notice, to either fight a fire or provide casualty evacuation.

We call it the "Firebucket", because that what it mostly does. As summer wears on, the greenery dries out, and we get a range fire once every week or two. So the bird launches, they hang a big honkin' bucket underneath, and it drops water onto the fire. It's a good time, I'm told.

Anyway, last week they were out fighting a fire, when they got a casevac mission call. Firefighting is mission category "urgent", but casevac is category "emergency", so the put the bucket down, flew to Lester Hospital to pick up a pair of corpsmen, and flew off to an Landing Zone in the Northern Training Area.

Part of the NTA is the Jungle Warfare School, and a fire team of four Marines were part of the Opposing Force providing the training. One of the fire team's members was bitten by a habu snake, the local venomous reptile, which is a man killer. Being OpFor, these guys were deep in the jungle. So the fastest one of the team went running off to the nearest command post to get a radio call out, the call that we responded to. The other two guys brought the snakebite victim out of the jungle with a fireman's carry.

The problem is, the guy that got bit was what we in the Corps refer to as a "Corn-fed MF'r". Six feet something, and a bit over two hundred pounds of muscle. They were in a hurry to get him to the LZ, naturally. They pushed the pace so much that they were waiting when our helo arrived… and one of them was down with heatstroke from the effort.

Good thing we had two litters rigged! Because the corpsmen weren't really all that worried about the snakebite; sure, a habu can kill you, but it takes a couple of hours, and there was plenty of time to get the victim to the hospital and inject him with antivenom. But heatstroke is a critical emergency requiring immediate treatment, and at the LZ all they'd had was water. So our arriving corpsmen wrapped up the heatstroke guy with the taco (sheets soaked in ice water), and only as a second thought put the snake-bit guy on the other stretcher, and then our bird raced to Lester, where again a stretcher crew raced to the helipad and hustled the heat casualty to the ER, and then came back for the snake-bit guy at a leisurely walk.

Then the bird took back off again and finished fighting the fire, which was much worse as it'd had plenty of time to get back to the business of burning.

The casualties are both expected to make a full recovery. The OpFor's CO told our CO that he's going to send the aircrew each a Letter of Commendation, which is nice of him.

All in a day's work in Dragontown!

Posted by: Boviate at 10:16 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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