Mountain training prepares docs for Afghanistan - Marine Corps News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Marine Corps Times

Mountain training prepares docs for Afghanistan

PICKEL MEADOW, Calif. — With more Navy medical personnel on track to deploy to Afghanistan, officials at the Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Training Center are injecting more reality into the center’s mountain medical courses.

This summer, a class of about 40 students — mostly Fleet Marine Force hospital corpsmen — grabbed their packs and ventured to White Mountain, a peak rising to 14,246 feet. They spent a night on the mountain, leaving the high-altitude camp that sits at 12,500 feet to hump it to the summit, where a small building serves as a high-altitude lab to study the effects of the high elevations on the body.

The two-day detour was a new addition to the Mountain Medicine Course, one of the specialized classes taught at the warfare center, near the town of Bridgeport in the eastern Sierra Mountains.

Col. Norman Cooling, the center’s commander, said he would like the program to include more scenarios similar to those that corpsmen will face in the Afghan mountains.

For the summer class, training officials exposed the students to higher altitudes so they can see and feel the effects for themselves.

Students in the 12-day course, held eight times a year, also learn about the physical and logistical obstacles they will likely encounter in Afghanistan.

During “Mountain Warrior” battalion-level training, which ran concurrently with the medical course, corpsmen and Marines faced realistic casualty scenarios, including Afghan role players and a male double-amputee role player. “Greenside” corpsmen learn how to identify illnesses such as dehydration and mountain sickness and treat injuries such as sprains and broken bones.

The environment can be an enemy of sorts. Rough terrain and poor roads make movement and vehicle transport of casualties tougher and slower, a critical factor in that “golden” first hour of treatment after a critical injury. Helicopters won’t always be available to evacuate a wounded Marine or be able to quickly reach casualties in Afghanistan’s larger, more dispersed battlefield.

“Everything is going to take longer in the mountains,” said Marine Capt. Patrick Kinser, who previously deployed to Afghanistan with 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marines, and works at the center.

Platoon corpsmen largely will be the first responders, so they also have to adapt to the environment.

“We did a lot of hikes to prepare this battalion ... just getting those legs ready,” said Hospital Corpsman 1st Class (FMF) Vidal Quintana, leading petty officer at the aid station for 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines. “This was an eye-opener for a lot of people.”