{"id":5950,"date":"2021-04-27T18:41:40","date_gmt":"2021-04-27T18:41:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/?p=5950"},"modified":"2021-04-27T22:14:49","modified_gmt":"2021-04-27T22:14:49","slug":"kfor-soldiers-conduct-active-shooter-mass-casualty-training","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/2021\/04\/27\/kfor-soldiers-conduct-active-shooter-mass-casualty-training\/","title":{"rendered":"KFOR Soldiers conduct active shooter, mass casualty training"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Story and photos by U.S. Army National Guard Sgt. Jonathan Perdelwitz, KFOR Regional Command East<\/i><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

CAMP BONDSTEEL, Kosovo\u2014Regional Command-East, Kosovo Force Soldiers conducted an active shooter and mass casualty training exercise at Camp Bondsteel, Kosovo, on April 17, 2021. It was the first time an exercise of this nature was held at the Army and Air Force Exchange Service store at Camp Bondsteel.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u201cI worked pretty closely with the AAFES manager,\u201d said 2nd Lt. Allison Vierps, officer in charge of the military police at Camp Bondsteel. \u201cShe was absolutely on board for anything we wanted to do. She has worked for AAFES around the world for 35 years and has never seen an active shooter exercise at a PX. She was pretty excited for this.\u201d

The training was a cooperative effort and the culmination of two months of planning between the 566th Medical Company (Area Support) out of Fort Hood, Texas, and the 29th Military Police Company, Maryland Army National Guard. The Turkish Contingent at Camp Bondsteel also provided security for the event.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u201cThe point of the training was to challenge the systems we have in place on Camp Bondsteel to make sure police, evacuation assets, clinic as well as our [medical evacuation team] can all work in the chain we originally planned for,\u201d said Capt. Kimberly Raymond, the infection control nurse at Camp Bondsteel.<\/p>\n

The exercise began with the MPs receiving a staged call reporting an active shooter at the store. Soldiers equipped with protective gear hurried to the scene and immediately began clearing the building. After securing the scene, they found and provided first aid to several simulated casualties with a variety of wounds before calling for medical evacuation.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\u201cWe tested our ability to provide care in an active shooter situation,\u201d said Vierps. \u201cIt\u2019s not something a lot of MPs focus on during this. We wanted to test and see how well our training with casualty care would go.\u201d

After the building was cleared, the medics took over. They reassessed the casualties, ensuring they received the correct care. Using litters, the medics carried the wounded from the store to a casualty collection point outside. They were then loaded into field ambulances and transported to the clinic.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u201cOn the way, everyone worked together to make sure everything was done correctly and made sure all the casualties were safe,\u201d said Spc. Tevin Walker, a combat medic specialist with the 566th MCAS. \u201cThe way everyone communicated and worked together was overall good.\u201d

Once they reached the clinic, the patients were given more extensive care and prepared for evacuation to a more advanced facility designed to treat serious injury.

\u201cThey communicated well, people stayed calm, and if there were questions about anything, nobody felt intimidated,\u201d said Raymond. \u201cThey reached out, asked the questions and were able to take care of the patients, and that is what\u2019s most important.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Regional Command-East, Kosovo Force Soldiers conducted an active shooter and mass casualty training exercise at Camp Bondsteel, Kosovo, on April 17, 2021. It was the first time an exercise of this nature was held at the Army and Air Force Exchange Service store at Camp Bondsteel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":160,"featured_media":5957,"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],"tags":[853],"class_list":["post-5950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-mdng"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5950","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\/160"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5950"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5950\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5971,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5950\/revisions\/5971"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}