GOODFELLOW AIR FORCE BASE, Texas -- The 17th Medical Group trained and tested themselves with their first Ready Eagle exercise here, the week of Oct. 19.
The week-long exercise focused on skills that the Ready Eagle team brought to Goodfellow.
“Ready Eagle is a week-long exercise that’s directed by the Air Force Medical Readiness Agency, and it culminates in a two-day capstone event,” said Col. Lauren Byrd, 17th MDG commander.
They put the group in high-pressure situations and asked them to think and act quickly.
None of the exercises were straight forward. What started as a typical day giving vaccines and filling prescriptions ended up being a life-threatening anthrax attack with many disgruntled patients.
“The purpose of the exercise is to get our home station medical response teams trained and ready to respond to any type of chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, explosive, or mass casualty event,” said Byrd. “It’s to make sure we’re ready to respond to the unexpected.”
The team prevailed with their diverse set of skills and met each challenge head-on.
“We perform in teams that are not our regular Air Force Specialty Codes,” said Tech. Sgt. Renan Jorge, 17th MDG manpower security team chief.
The 17th MDG wasn’t the only agency on base that participated in the exercise. Emergency Management, the Goodfellow Fire Department, local representatives, chaplains, and the Wing Inspection Team were all involved in the training.
17th Civil Engineer Squadron fire inspector, Billy Clemons noted that it was important that they watch how the MDG works because they would work alongside eachother in a real-world situation. The fire department changes their tactics to mirror the MDG or give them pointers if tactics they have used in the past worked better.
Medical Contingency Response Teams have to be prepared for every kind of emergency; anything from an outbreak to an explosion could be the next obstacle.