'Dustoff' Company transports injured to treatment facilities
By Sgt. 1st Class Reginald Rogers
July 10, 2006
CAMP TAJI, Iraq (Army News Service, July 10, 2006) – One unit has sole responsibility for getting Baghdad-stationed coalition forces and civilians in need of medical care to the right treatment facilities.
Since November 2005, more than 3,500 patients have been transported by Company C, 2nd Battalion, 4th Aviation Regiment, Combat Aviation Brigade, 4th Infantry Division. The more than 80 Soldiers assigned to the unit operate from Camp Taji and Forward Operating Base Falcon.
Missions taken on by the “Dustoff” Company are categorized as urgent or priority according to patients’ conditions.
“Our overall mission is to facilitate the safest and most rapid evacuation of casualties from the battlefield, and that includes all casualties – Soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, enemy prisoners of war, non-U.S. military and civilians,” said the company’s operations officer, Capt. Chris Chung.
While some of their work takes place on secure operating bases, other parts occur outside the wire. The more dangerous point-of-entry pickups include roadside evacuations resulting from IED strikes or vehicle rollovers.
According to pilot-in-command, Chief Warrant Officer 2 Toby Blackmon, every mission varies from the previous.
“We once had a mission right in downtown Baghdad, where we had to come down between light poles and wires,” Blackmon said. Even when security is provided, landing the aircraft on a road in the center of the city with tall buildings can still feel insecure, he said.
“You just have to trust your mates and crew chiefs to keep the aircraft clear as much as they possibly can, and trust your gut to do the best job you can,” he said. “Getting the patient on board the aircraft is what it’s all about.”
Co. C is in the midst of its third deployment in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The unit deployed during OIF I and II as the 507th Medical Company before being reassigned to the CAB and deploying as part of the brigade’s General Support Aviation Battalion. Some of the unit’s Soldiers spent no more than eight months at Fort Hood between deployments.
Despite the unit’s high optempo, Chung said morale remains high because the Soldiers realize the importance of their jobs.
“We’re able to maintain a level of camaraderie that makes us a great company. Our morale remains very high because everybody takes pride in the mission, which is the most important thing here,” he said.
Chung and Blackmon agreed that crew coordination and unselfishness help the Soldiers work as a team.
“Crew coordination is making sure that everyone knows what their job is inside the aircraft,” Chung explained. “I think it helps out that everybody’s unselfish. They know that when we’re flying, we’ve got three other guys we’ve got to take care of, in addition to the patient that we’re picking up. So, as pilots-in-command, it’s our job to ensure that we bring everybody back.”
Each crewmember plays a vital part in accomplishing missions, Blackmon added.
“There are four people required to be on the aircraft for us to run a mission – the pilot-in-command, the pilot, the medic and the crew chief. When you put all four of them together, each person is the most qualified on that aircraft for their specific position. If you have one person missing from that group, the others cannot work,” Blackmon said.
The unit will be among the CAB’s first to redeploy back to Fort Hood in the upcoming months, but Chung and Blackmon both refuse to look that far.
“It’s a short amount of time, but we still have a lot to do,” Chung said.
(Editor’s note: Sgt. 1st Class Reginald Rogers writes for the 4th Infantry Division Public Affairs Office.)
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