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Nimitz Improves Readiness with Mass Casualty Drill

Navy NewsStand

Story Number: NNS050711-17
Release Date: 7/11/2005 9:21:00 PM

By Journalist 3rd Class Dustin Q. Diaz, USS Nimitz Public Affairs

USS NIMITZ, At Sea (NNS) -- Crew members from all over the aircraft carrier raced into action as they reacted to a simulated mass casualty drill on the mess deck June 24.

According to Lt. Cmdr. Anthony Boganey, ship’s surgeon, the purpose of the drill was to test the crew’s response to an emergency scenario involving a large number of casualties.

“It could be anything from a massive fire to an aircraft accident,” said Boganey, a resident of Muskegon, Mich. “In a mass casualty, you’re dealing with a situation where there’s going to be a large loss of life, and you want to do everything you can to reduce that number. The only way to do that in a real-life situation is to train for it.”

This was the first drill of its kind during Nimitz’ current deployment, and unlike similar drills involving mishaps on the flight deck or in the hangar bay, this one began with a fire in an aft berthing space. Damage Control (DC) Central responded to the fire and casualties were moved to a safe area to be triaged, which in this case was several hundred feet away on the aft mess deck. Security personnel kept crew members out of hazardous areas and the “walking blood bank” was mobilized to the scene to give blood if needed.

Personnel casualties were then treated and evacuated to the main battle dressing station in the medical department. After the drill, the Medical Training Team reviewed the results of the drill to evaluate how effective DC Central, medical and other personnel were in dealing with the situation.

“I think we did relatively well,” Boganey said. “It’s been a while since we’ve done one, and some people were a little rusty because of that. But overall, they did a good job of responding to the problem.”

Jordyn Livingston, a junior midshipman from Dallas, aboard Nimitz for her nursing cruise, participated in the drill alongside the crew and said it helped give her an idea of what to expect if she finds herself in a real-life mass casualty situation during her naval career.

“I was with an independent duty corpsman, mostly observing and trying to jump in where I could,” Livingston said. “The drill was pretty chaotic, people were running all over the place. But I was very impressed with the coordination and communication between the different teams.”

Boganey said these drills are usually held quarterly, and sometimes more often if needed. He said more will be happening in the near future to improve the ship’s readiness level.

“On large ship like this, you’ve got a lot of aircraft, hazardous materials and dangerous machinery where problems could arise,” Boganey said. “While you’re on deployment, it’s not easy to medically evacuate injured crew members, so you have to learn to deal with what you have. You can hope for the best, but you have to prepare for the worst, and that’s what drills like these help us to do.”