AFMC Command News

Trauma-trained personnel aided news crew survival

  • Published
  • By Rudy Purificato
  • 311th Human Systems Wing Public Affairs
Air Force trauma training supported at Brooks City-Base, along with aeromedical evacuation equipment developed at Brooks City-Base, contributed to the treatment and survival of an ABC news crew that was severely wounded in Iraq Jan. 29.

Bob Woodruff, co-anchor of ABC’s World News Tonight, and Emmy Award-winning cameraman Doug Vogt, were in serious but stable condition in Bethesda, Md., after sustaining shrapnel wounds from a roadside bomb near Taji located 12 miles north of Baghdad. Their recovery, Air Force officials concede, has been aided by Air Force aeromedical resources.

“They were cared for by a CCATT team during an air evacuation mission,” said Gary Pomeroy, chief of internal communications and community outreach for the Air Force Surgeon General’s office.

CCATT, or Critical Care Air Transport Team, was created as an Air Force program in 1997 at the U.S. Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine. Its purpose has been to expand Air Force aeromedical evacuation capabilities with trauma care-in-the-air specialists who have since helped thousands of critically ill, injured and wounded military and civilian patients survive.

“Aeromedical evacuation personnel, such as EMEDS (Expeditionary Medical Support) and CCATT, get their initial training here at the school. Before they deploy, they receive hands-on intensive and emergency care training through C-STARS,” said Maj. Barbara Dauerty, referring to the Centers for Sustainment of Trauma and Readiness Skills program.

In 2004, the Air Force Expeditionary Medical Skills Institute was chartered under USAFSAM to provide central oversight, management and validation of the Air Force Medical Service Readiness Skills Verification Program and the C-STARS training platforms.

C-STARS training platforms are facilitated through partnerships with major universities’ trauma centers, said Major Dauerty, USAFSAM’s Biological Sciences Corps officer in charge of the BSC Readiness Skills Verification Program. C-STARS partners include the University of Maryland and Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore, University of Cincinnati and University of St. Louis.

According to the Aeronautical Systems Center public affairs office, three CCATT team members who treated the ABC newsmen on the C-17 aeromedical evacuation flight from Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany to Andrews Air Force Base, Md. were medics who had trained at the C-STARS University of Cincinnati hospital trauma center.

Patient support pallets used to safely and expeditiously transport Mr. Woodruff and Mr. Vogt aboard the C-17 flight were initially developed by the 311th Human Systems Group here. These new modular litter systems, first fielded in 2002, were created to reconfigure Air Force cargo aircraft into air ambulances.