By
PTE John Wellfare
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LAC
Michael Gunn, from No. 3 Combat Support Hospital at RAAF
Base Richmond, shows a group of Vietnamese officers the
AME setup on board a C-130J.
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Photo by FSGT Mark McIntyre.
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A Hercules crew and team of AME specialists
visited Vietnam to show off Australia’s
evacuation capability. The visit included
theory presentations and a demonstration
flight.
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AIR
Force aero-medical evacuation specialists and aircrew have visited
Vietnam to demonstrate Australia’s AME capability and exchange
information with their counterparts in the Vietnamese military.
The Australians, led by Air Movements Training and Development
Unit CO Wing Commander Mark Smith, made the visit in a C-130J
aircraft outfitted for AME tasks.
WGCDR Smith said during the three-day visit, the Australians and
Vietnamese shared information on their experiences with humanitarian
relief.
The Australian team gave several a number of presentations on
AME methods, procedures and aircraft configurations, as well as
briefs on Australia’s two major relief operations of recent
years, Operations Bali Assist and Sumatra Assist.
They also took the Vietnamese personnel and officials on a demonstration
AME flight, during which the Australian medical team dealt with
in-flight medical emergencies on a simulated casualty.
“[The Vietnamese] were very inspired with the way we can
get in there and help out other countries in the region,”
he said.
“Their Deputy Chief [of the Air Defence Force] said that
they wanted to improve their ability to respond to humanitarian
disasters in their country.”
Leading the four-person medical team for the trip, Squadron Leader
Russell Brown said while the Vietnamese medical personnel had
a similar level of clinical skill, they benefited from the Australians’
experience in AME operations.
“I think they got a lot out of it,” he said. “They
were very interested in our designated structure that we run AMEs
from and our on-call system, where there’s always a team
that can launch immediately.”
During the presentations and demonstration flight, the Australian
medical staff explained several procedures to handle typical difficulties
that AME teams face.
“I guess the most important thing that I left them with was
a list of the standard equipment that we take on a typical AME
and a list of the standard medications that we take,” SQNLDR
Brown said.
“We felt really good about giving [the demonstrations], and
I think they received it really well.”
