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Damage Control Training Improves Fleet Readiness

Navy NewsStand

Story Number: NNS051129-12
Release Date: 11/29/2005 5:14:00 PM

By Journalist Seaman Apprentice Katrina Scampini, Fleet Public Affairs Center Atlantic

NORFOLK, Va. (NNS) -- Norfolk area Sailors tested their damage control knowledge Nov. 18 and 21 aboard USS Buttercup at Naval Station Norfolk’s Center for Naval Engineering Damage Control.

The two-unit USS Buttercup course is offered to Navy personnel E-5 and above in order to familiarize them with damage control equipment and specific scenarios they may encounter at sea.

Students must save USS Buttercup, a mock ship contained in an 80,000-gallon tank of water. This lab evaluates how quickly and effectively the students can apply practical use of their damage control training.

The course is divided into classroom training and prepared training labs for the students to test their leadership and team communication skills.

“All the trainers are here to familiarize the fleet with causalities, which we try to make as realistic as possible,” said Chief Damage Controlman Jacqueline J. Felton, a course instructor.

“We want to put them in the repair mode so that if something does happen, they are familiar with the situations.”

Before each lab, instructors brief students on safety precautions and "training time-out" procedures. Students are then separated into teams for more hands-on training.

The students practice pipe-patching and hole-plugging with various patching techniques. Instructors also use a mock wall to show the group how to effectively plug various size holes.

A refresher course on shoring is taught before students are challenged to rebuild three displayed shores that instructors break down in front of them.

A test through the confidence chamber, an enclosed room where instructors burn tablets of tear gas, is the final lab students must work through.

Felton said the confidence chamber lab helps to ensure Sailors trust their equipment so they can keep themselves from contamination.

“They benefit by getting the training they need,” Felton said.

“They have more knowledge to pass onto the fleet. I always ask, ‘how can you teach what you don’t know?’ You need to be taught in order to teach.”