39th Brigade trains to keep soldiers alive

By Amy Schlesing (Contact)

NORTHERN KUWAIT — As Brent Cloud introduced himself to the soldiers seated in neat rows along the tent walls, the group slowly became aware that the mannequins lying on the stained floor in front of him appeared to be breathing.

Their chests were rhythmically moving up and down.

Some had bones protruding from meaty-looking rubber stubs. Others had wounds in their chests and backs.

“We’re going to give you information we hope you never use,” Cloud told the soldiers of Arkansas’ 39th Infantry Brigade.

In this nondescript tent on the edge of a camp in the Kuwaiti desert, Cloud and Mike Haight - both retired Special Forces medics - teach soldiers how to safely pull their wounded buddies off the battlefield and keep them alive until a medic arrives.

It’s part of the training Arkansas’ largest brigade is undergoing while waiting to move into Iraq to begin its second deployment in the war. Thebrigade’s roughly 2,800 soldiers will protect supply convoys, guard bases, and provide security for military and government leaders.

More than 40,000 soldiers have gone through the medical training program since its start two years ago. The original goal was to have just 1,500 soldiers trained each year.

“We turned 12,000 in the first year. I told the Army that if they give us two more people, I can put an entire brigade through,” Cloud said. “We don’t get paid extra for holding more classes. The main thing is getting all the kids trained. This helps keep them alive.”

Two more trainers will join the program in the coming months - doubling the program’s capability.

Right now, not everyone gets this extra training. At least one soldier per gun truck has advanced medical training.

“If I had it my way, we’d do a lot more of this sort of training with every soldier,” said Capt. Kenneth Weaver of North Little Rock, medical officer for the 39th’s 1st Battalion. “I’ll get as many in here as they can handle. We’re going to fill up these classes. This is a good thing.”

The class goes beyond anything the 39th has learned so far during its mobilization training. Cloud and Haight use a bank of computers to manipulate the mannequins’ responses to treatment, enabling the soldiers to learn what works through trial and error.

They can collapse a lung, adjust the pulse and change blood flow.

A 500-gallon vat of fake blood sits outside the tent. The fluid is pumped through tubes into each of the eight dummies where it pours from their wounds. It stops only if the soldiers properly apply pressure, tourniquets or pressure bandages to control the flow.

Battalion medics guide the soldiers as they work on the mannequins, giving pointers on controlling blood loss and shock.

The lessons are critical.

The deaths of four U.S. soldiers in a roadside bombing about 10 p.m. Sunday in southern Baghdad pushed to 4,000 the number of American service members killed as the war enters its sixth year. Another soldier was wounded in the attack, the military said.

The Associated Press count of 4,000 deaths is based on U.S. military reports and includes eight civilians who worked for the Department of Defense.

More than 30,000 U.S. service members have been injured in combat in Iraq since the beginning of the war, according to the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, a nonprofit organization that tracks war losses.

During its first deployment to Iraq in 2004-2005, soldiers from the 39th suffered more than 250 injuries. In addition, 33 soldiers from the brigade died - including 16 Arkansans. About 1,000 troops from other states were attached to the 39th for its first deployment.

In all, 66 soldiers with Arkansas ties have been killed in the war in Iraq, according to a tally kept by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Four others with Arkansas ties have died in Afghanistan.

Moments before the class started, Weaver looked at the medics huddled around him and gave final pointers on teaching soldiers how to save lives.

“It’s about confidence,” Weaver said. “Teach with confidence, and it gives them confidence in their ability.”

And when a soldier is wounded in battle, scared and relying on his buddy to stop the bleeding and save his life, confidence is key.

“They’re looking at you tosave their life,” Weaver told the class. “Reassure them, stay with them, keep checking them head to toe.”

As the soldiers gathered in groups around each of the eight mannequins, Haight turned levers to let the “blood” flow. Red fluid poured out of amputated legs, pooling on the linoleum floor from unseen wounds.

“You can learn a lot from a dummy,” he said. “We hot-rodded these so they bleed like a real person.”

Medics stripped their shirts off, unfazed by the growing blood pools, and encouraged soldiers to jump into the muck.

A soldier lowered his ear to the mouth of one of the dummies, listening for breath. Blood poured out of the dummy’s injured leg and from a shrapnel wound in its back.

“That’s a waste of time, you can see he’s breathing, his chest is moving up and down,” Haight said. “And, he’s still bleeding. Keep it simple.”

He walked over to the dummy and spread his hands across its chest as he explained the shortcut. Then he placed his knee on the mannequin’s thigh, pinching off the bleeding artery at the groin as he prepared a tourniquet for the amputated leg.

He went back to his panel of computers and stopped the pulse and breathing on another mannequin. The team didn’t notice, they kept trying to wrap a pressure bandage around his gut wound.

“What happened here guys?” Haight asked.

“He made us angry,” quipped Spc. Michael Mathis of De-Queen.

“He made you angry and you killed him?” Haight pushed.

“He’s not dead yet,” Mathis said.

“Yes he is. There’s a body and no pulse,” Haight said.

The group frantically looked for a pulse.

Nothing.

“That’s what these guys need, hands-on training,” said Staff Sgt. Michael Holley of North Little Rock, a 1st Battalion medic, as he looked at the group next to him. “But there’s nothing like the real thing.”

Holley knows from experience. He is a firefighter at home, and this is his second deployment to Iraq. He turned back to his trainees, who were working on their still living mannequin.

“Put your hands on him, check him out,” he told them, kneeling down. “Let me show you a little trick.”

His team of soldiers swarmed the mannequin. Spc. Michael Jeffcoat of Pea Ridge packed gauze into a wound while Sgt. Sedrick White of Hope applied a pressure bandage to an oozing gut wound.

All the while, Pvt. Douglas Moe of Alma kept an eye on the mannequin’s pulse and breathing.

“Tourniquet! Tourniquet!” White started to shout as fluid from the mannequin’s leg started gushing through a bandage.

An amputated limb or wound to a major artery can cause enough blood loss to kill a person in a matter of minutes.

“The best way to keep him alive is to keep the blood in him,” Haight said.

Cloud and Haight often work well into the night training.

“This is a personal thing. I can actually touch somebody and make a difference. You don’t know what’s in the future for a kid whose life is saved because of what is learned here. You just don’t know. His yet-to-be-born son may be president,” Cloud said. “I have no doubt that this is what I’m supposed to be doing right now.”

Front Section, Pages 1, 2 on 03/25/2008