SOUTH DAKOTA — Almost everyone has heard the saying, “practice makes perfect.” When it comes to getting a severely injured visitor, employee or partner, literally, out of the woods, the injured person really needs perfect. But how does someone get practice when it’s a rare emergency that involves remote locations, challenging terrain spanning multiple people, communication methods, processes and methods of transportation?

That’s where Aaren Nellen and Carl Doaty come in. Both Nellen, a forest fire training and workforce development specialist with Nebraska National Forests and Grasslands, and Doaty, an engine captain with Buffalo Gap National Grasslands, have experience organizing and leading the annual Great Plains Interagency Dispatch Center Medivac Exercise as incident commanders.

For over ten years, the annual Medivac Exercise has provided an opportunity for field going personnel to learn and practice skills in patient assessment, preparing patients for transport (packaging) and transporting patients from the field to the appropriate level of medical care.  The training includes multiple learning stations that highlight tools or transport vehicles, demonstrate techniques and provide opportunities for attendees to practice packaging or patient assessment. Attendees then practice the skills they’ve learned in one or more emergency scenarios.

This year, the exercise was held at Buffalo Gap National Grasslands in South Dakota with about 80 participants. The one-day event is generally hosted at a different location in the dispatch zone each year.

The exercise is complicated, like a true emergency extraction. Multiple interagency cooperators assist with planning and implementation to make this training a success. In addition to the dispatch center and Forest Service personnel, past contributors have included the South Dakota National Guard, LifeFlight, Hot Springs Ambulance Service, National Park Service, South Dakota Division of Wildland Fire, Bureau of Land Management, The Bureau of Indian Affairs, and Rapid City Fire/REM Team.

Nellen aims to improve the response while decreasing the response time, stating, “This is how we can be better prepared to help one another and the public in a time of need. This exercise offers experience and exposure to help field going personnel better respond to unexpected events.”    

Previous medical emergencies, particularly those involving communication or transportation challenges, have been the impetus behind medivac exercises and drills like this one. Nellen was particularly motivated by the 2008 death of firefighter Andrew “Andy” Palmer at the Dutch Creek Fire, where multiple challenges such as a remote location, limited communications and difficult terrain increased the response time substantially, sadly contributing to Palmer’s death.  

Nellen suggests that continuing this kind of drill is crucially important. Even more so, it’s getting it to a broader audience, regardless of agency affiliation or discipline, both as participants and incident commanders\leaders. As Nellen knows, “Aviation assets, such as helicopters and small planes, may be a desired component of a medical incident response; however, they can be unfamiliar or intimidating to people. By integrating these aviation assets into this training, it brings tools to the table that some individuals may not have the opportunity to work with except in an exercise like this.”

All are invited to participate in the Great Plains Interagency Dispatch Center medivac exercises, particularly those who might want to create a similar training event at their home unit. Anyone interested in organizing a similar exercise can reach out to their local Forest Service fire management officer or agency training officer for more information so they, too, can get some useful medivac practice.