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Tactical Combat Casualty Care: Applying Lessons Learned Under Fire

Navy NewsStand

Story Number: NNS071016-16
Release Date: 10/16/2007 2:39:00 PM

From Naval Hospital Pensacola Public Affairs

PENSACOLA, Fla. (NNS) -- Naval Hospital (NH) Pensacola began the Navy Medicine's Tactical Combat Casualty Care (TCCC) course, Oct. 1, with new instructors providing combat-related trauma care for the command's hospital corpsmen.

The instructors, being the first class of instructor-trainers, graduated during the final week of September.

TCCC, while new to the U.S. Navy, has been in place for the Army and the Marine Corps for the past seven years.

Now, the Navy’s Bureau of Medicine and Surgery officially made TCCC the Navy’s standard of care on the battlefield, making initial care for the wounded combatant — regardless of service affiliation — consistent across the board in all of the military services.

“There are so many corpsmen from the hospital, and its clinics, being deployed to the [global] war on terror[ism],” said Hospital Corpsman 2nd Class Christian T. Hans of the command’s education and training department. “For us to now have this course right here where many of them deploy from is a great advantage.”

The TCCC standard of care in the battlefield is continually evolving to address tactics and challenges faced by medical personnel in combat environments.

NH Pensacola is the regional center for TCCC training at its 12 branch health clinics across five states, which include Florida, Louisiana, Indiana, Mississippi and Tennessee.

NH Pensacola works closely with the Naval Operational Medical Institute (NOMI) on board Naval Air Station Pensacola, and its lessons-learned center, to develop the TCCC course for the Navy.

Historically, 90 percent of combat wound fatalities die on the battlefield before reaching a medical treatment facility. This fact of war emphasizes the need for continued improvement in tactical pre-hospital care.

TCCC guidelines have their roots in a 1996 study which provided a set of recommended guidelines for combat trauma care for use by Special Operations’ corpsmen, (Army and Air Force) medics and parachuting rescue men.

Capt. Frank Butler, a special operations ophthalmologist who served at NH Pensacola and who is currently on the NOMI lessons-learned team, is among those who authored the study.

Establishing a multi-service Committee on Tactical Combat Casualty Care (CoTCCC) to continuously update the guidelines is comprised of service members, a civilian group of trauma specialists, operational medical officers and combat medical personnel.

CoTCCC’s purpose is to monitor developments in medical practice, medical technology, pharmacology, tactical and civilian pre-hospital trauma care and combat doctrine, and based upon input from these sources, continually update TCCC guidelines — always evolving in how combat medicine is conducted.

The NH Pensacola course is administered by the recently certified staff members to facilitate the course in readying its platform-specific and individual augmentees who deploy throughout the world. Their deployment destinations have included, but are not limited to, Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Horn of Africa, Cuba and the Republic of Georgia.

Offering the TCC course here produces value-added training and support capabilities to the Navy and Marine Corps worldwide.

“The reason for the class being located at Naval Hospital Pensacola is because it makes sense,” Hans said. “I’m very proud to be a part of getting it all started.”

The on-site classroom at Naval Hospital Pensacola is set up to simulate a combat field hospital using the very same equipment found in the many combat environments to which Navy corpsmen deploy.

The instructors are combat veterans with extensive knowledge and experience in the areas of combat medicine and tactical field care.

Through the TCCC program, deploying corpsmen will gain the skills, mind-set and knowledge to perform on the battlefield with confidence, continued Hans, and will gain the ability to limit preventable deaths on the battlefield.

“They will now have a great idea of what they are going to be facing, before they even get there, and that will make them that much better in combat — where every life and every second counts,” Hans added.