{"id":364,"date":"2015-05-31T13:39:38","date_gmt":"2015-05-31T13:39:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/?p=364"},"modified":"2017-08-09T17:12:27","modified_gmt":"2017-08-09T17:12:27","slug":"reel-time-maryland-guard-estonian-bomb-squad-partner-to-save-lives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/2015\/05\/31\/reel-time-maryland-guard-estonian-bomb-squad-partner-to-save-lives\/","title":{"rendered":"Reel time: Maryland Guard, Estonian bomb squad partner to save lives"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Staff Sgt. Margaret Taylor, 29th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment \u2014
\n<\/strong><\/em>
\nTALLINN, Estonia (May 31, 2015)\u2014The smoke billowed around a young man, who lay bleeding and barely breathing on the sandy ground. His injuries had come from a treasure hunt gone bad: he\u2019d struck a half-buried bomb with the blade of his shovel. His right hand and foot were severed in the explosion.<\/p>\n

All was eerily quiet as the smoke thinned and cleared.<\/p>\n

\u201cCut!\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The

The PAO team used medical training limbs to add realism to the final scene. Col. Kohler puts his time as a corpsman to good use for this scene.\u00a0<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

The crew members shifted their camera gear, and the young man \u2013 an actor \u2013 relaxed for a few minutes before filming another take in the scene. The scene with the smoke was the last shots captured in a joint Maryland National Guard-Estonian Rescue Board film project shot in Tallinn, Estonia, on May 26-27.<\/p>\n

The purpose of the project was to raise awareness of and educate the public about the unexploded ordnance (UXO) issue in Estonia, said Arno Pugonen, chief, EOD Center.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you are playing with explosives, there are only two real possibilities,\u201d Pugonen said, describing a key message from the film project. \u201cYou will go to prison, or you are injured or dead.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Staff

Staff Sgt. Margaret Taylor lines up the shot of the UXO fins for the explosion sequence.\u00a0<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

On account of World Wars I and II and the 1944-1991 Soviet occupation, Estonia has hundreds of thousands of bombs, mortars, missiles, and landmines \u2013 or UXOs \u2013 riddling the country, and the danger they pose is very real. Demining efforts continue on a daily basis.<\/p>\n

In addition to locating and destroying bombs, educating the public about UXOs is one of the primary objectives of the Humanitarian Mining Action (HMA) program, which in Estonia falls under the U.S. Army\u2019s European Command. The HMA program provides resources for operations and
\ntraining to agencies like Estonia\u2019s Rescue Board.<\/p>\n

\"Staff

Staff Sgts Michael Davis, Jr., and Margaret Taylor, members of the 29th Mobile Public Affairs detachment, prepare the lab scene of the awareness video.\u00a0<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

In the case of the film project, the HMA program brought the Rescue Board and Maryland National Guard Soldiers together to create four public service announcements. The Maryland Guard and Estonia are partners under the National Guard\u2019s State Partnership Program. The partnership began in 1993 to assist with the Baltic state\u2019s transition to an independent nation after the collapse of the Soviet Union.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe HMA program is one of the best connections between the U.S. and Estonia,\u201d Pugonen said. \u201cIt\u2019s very constructive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Plans for the video project began more than three years ago under the guidance of Army Maj. Tracy J. Sullins, who was the bilateral affairs officer between the Maryland Guard and Estonia. Sullins recently turned over his duties to Air Force Capt. Daniel Griffin. Sullins said he wanted to connect Maryland Guard medical and public affairs teams with the Estonian Rescue Board to boost the Rescue Board\u2019s emergency services and public relations capabilities.<\/p>\n

Since 2012, Maryland medical teams have visited their Estonian counterparts twice to share training aids and knowledge. The artificial limbs that were included in the medical training aids were used in the commercial. Maryland public affairs crews have made the journey four times to coach first responders on public relations, to train them on camera equipment, and \u2013 most recently \u2013 to create commercials to educate the public about UXOs.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not often that a bilateral relations officer gets to see a program go all the way through. This is it: this is the culminating event,\u201d Sullins said after watching the completed commercials. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of a bittersweet moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Members

Members of the Estonian EOD prepare an explosive charge for the detonation scene.\u00a0<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

Explosive-related fatalities such as the young treasure hunter\u2019s used to be common occurrences in Estonia. Since 2012, however, no one has died from a UXO explosion.<\/p>\n

While the HMA program is one of several public safety efforts, Pugonen said, it is clear that its contributions to education have helped reduce fatalities to zero for four years in a row. This is largely on account of the Maryland-Estonia partnership.<\/p>\n

Said Pugonen: \u201cI hope our partnership continues.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The smoke billowed around a young man, who lay bleeding and barely breathing on the sandy ground. His injuries had come from a treasure hunt gone bad: he\u2019d struck a half-buried bomb with the blade of his shovel. His right hand and foot were severed in the explosion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":139,"featured_media":368,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2,810],"tags":[66,478,477,479],"class_list":["post-364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-state-partnership-program","tag-estonia","tag-film-project","tag-maryland-national-guard-estonian-rescue-board","tag-public-service-announcements"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/139"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=364"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1692,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364\/revisions\/1692"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}