Mass Casualty Exercise with titles

The U.S. Military deployed and French forces partnered up to test their capabilities of handling a mass casualty. Staff Sergeant Sara Weeks takes us to the accident scene. REPORTER Service members from Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti participated in their first ever mass casualty exercise combined with U.S. joint military and French forces. In this exercise scenario combined U.S. and French military forces are involved in a traffic accident with multiple. casualties. SB The key component in this was the command and control components between the U.S. and the French operations center and command to begin dialogue and figure out how they were going to conduct this operation in order to get forty bodies from out here in Grand Bara seventy-five kilometers back to Djibouti to get them proper medical care. REPORTER First responders arrived to the scene of the accident by helicopter and quickly triaged and transported patients to receive medical treatment. Testing the medical unit’s capabilities which includes the medical evacuation procedures of both forces are also major components of the exercise. SB: Exercises like this supports the HOA mission because we are working with our partner nation being the French since we both have a significant foot print here in Djibouti. This is the first step of further outreaching effort that eventually will hopefully incorporate the Djiboutians and our other partner nations to include the Germans, the Spanish so we can have a plied combat multiplier as far as everyone being involved because if we had a mass casualty event along these lines that involved local Djiboutians we would need to use the Djiboutian resources as well. So this is the first step toward that. REPORTER Exercises such as this one help build coalition capacity to enhance medical readiness and ultimately save lives. For Combined Joint Task Force Horn of Africa Public Affairs, I’m Staff Sergeant Sara Weeks. Also available in high definition.