Fort Bliss Monitor

Minnesota National Guard’s 1256th Med. Co. reaches year mark at Bliss

Spc. Steve Baack
Monitor Staff

Crew members in one of the UH-60A Black Hawks work on sling load training by moving a connex container.

While every Fort Bliss unit is a valuable part of the Army, one of the most vital, yet lesser-known units is the 1256th Medical Company (Air Ambulance) at Biggs Army Airfield.

As a member of the Minnesota National Guard, the 1256th was activated February 13, 2003, to process through Fort Hood, Texas, in support of Operation Noble Eagle. From there, the company split into detachments: one to remain at Fort Hood, and the rest distributed among four other detachments: Fort Sill, Fort Riley, Fort Carson and Fort Bliss. The detachment here is a rapid-response medical evacuation company on-call 24 hours a day to transport injured Soldiers and civilians promptly to area hospitals.

The detachment comprises three crews, each generally consisting of two pilots, one medic and one crew chief. “A lot of times we have first-up and second-up crews,” said Sgt. Dan Britz, crew chief.” First-up is at the airfield 24 hours. Second-up, you carry a pager and got to be within 30 minutes of the airfield … the third crew is off.”

Since their arrival to Fort Bliss, the detachment has completed more than 60 missions. While many of those missions concerned injured Soldiers, most have involved civilians.

“Normally if the civilian transport is unable to respond to the accident, or whatever, we’ll fly out there,” said Chief Warrant Officer Aidan Anderson. “A lot of the accidents happen - car accidents – out on Highway 10, or some of the rural parts where ground transport can take anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour and a half to get them back to the hospital, whereas with us it’s usually a matter of minutes. We can usually get them out and up, between the scene of the accident and the hospital, within 15 or 20 minutes.”

Unlike their civilian medevac counterparts, when properly configured, either of the two UH-60A Black Hawks can transport up to three critical patients facilitated by a litter-pan carousel. Also, the detachment has rescue hoists and night vision goggles. In the instance that there are multiple injured civilians, it is to the civilian medics’ advantage to take the most critical of the two or more patients and use the detachment to transport the others.

Chief Warrant Officer Aidan Anderson, pilot, and Sgt. Dan Britz, crew chief, prep the UH-60A Black Hawk before flight.

Most of the remaining calls come from McGregor Range, Dona Ana Range Complex and areas in between. “Typically our calls involve Soldiers that get injured, that are injured on the ranges doing training exercises – things of that nature,” said Anderson. “We’ll fly downrange, scoop them up and we’ll fly them back. With a few exceptions, all the Soldiers we pick up we bring to William Beaumont.”

“The majority of the stuff we get for injured Soldiers is dehydration and bug bites,” said Britz.
“… Yeah, some medical stuff – chest pains – and that type of thing,” added Anderson. “We’ve only had a couple of instances with the real serious range-related injuries.

“As a rule, people are operating pretty safely on the ranges out there,” continued Anderson. “We’ve probably had more civilian than range missions. So you can tell that definitely, from the amount of training that’s going on out there, people are paying attention and doing it safely, which we like of course. We like flying, but of course we’d rather not pick up injured Soldiers on the ranges.”

Like anyone else in the Army, the ability to do their job properly comes from regular training and being ready for what’s next.

“We get our aircraft prepped, we get our med equipment prepped – that’s all done by 9 o’clock in the morning,” said Anderson. “Either at some point throughout the day, or later at night, we’ll conduct a training flight – usually about an hour and a half … and sometimes the on-call crew will come in and they’ll utilize the aircraft and do more training. It’s a little bit better to do that kind of training because they’re not on the first-up availability. They can go and do a little bit better training and get out a little further away from home here, and be away for little bit longer times.”

“They don’t have to watch their fuel,” added Britz. “They’re not just limited to flying an hour and a half. They can fly two and a half hours if they want to.”

In addition to their usual training, the detachment teams up with other units and outside agencies not only to improve themselves, but to help the unit or agency meet the goals of their own training or mission. The detachment has teamed up with the El Paso Fire Department, Police Department, the U.S. Border Patrol, and the El Paso Search and Rescue team. They have also trained with 3rd Battalion, 43rd Air Defense Artillery Regiment, 11th ADA Brigade; with members of the 7th Special Forces Group; with Soldiers from 1-56th ADA and others.

One of the biggest parts of the job is being ready for the mission, said Anderson. The crews perform various checks that include pre-flight checks, med-equipment checks, mission-equipment checks and inspections of the hoist cable.

“It’s more of a ritual really,” said Anderson. “Every morning, it’s kind of the same sequence of events; the same set of steps. Usually it doesn’t take longer than about an hour to prep the aircraft, med equipment and mission equipment.

“None of that stuff is necessarily unique to this mission, but we want our aircraft set up so that when we get a call, it’s a matter of getting out, flipping three switches and being down the road,” added Anderson.

Some of the more memorable missions occurred early last year. In March, the detachment was called up to transport kids from the scene of a school bus accident. Crews ended up making two trips apiece with both Black Hawks. A month later, the unit was called out to Carlsbad, N.M., to evacuate people stranded by flooding in the area. They moved 44 people to safe ground.

“It’s definitely a challenge,” said Anderson of the deployment. “For us, this is a CONUS deployment, so the crew members that are here are set up and doing pretty well here. But we’re still away from families, away from jobs, so it can be challenging.”

While no one can be sure how much longer they will be here, they have had a rare opportunity to improve themselves as air ambulance crew members in various capacities.

“I think it’s going really well,” said Staff Sgt. PJ McMahon. “It’s giving us an opportunity to fine-tune our skills. We were a very new unit before we got here, so we threw together some good people from a lot of different areas, and had a chance to work together and fine-tune our skills, and become much more efficient than when we got here.”



www.bliss.army.mil	Published for the Fort Bliss/El Paso, Texas Community	February 24, 2005

<map name="boxmap-b4"> <area shape="rect" coords="0, 589, 120, 600" href="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm/privacy-policy.html?o=1" > <area coords="0,0,10000,10000" href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=&creative=92501&camp=8117&link_code=dl1&path=subst/misc/amazon-cobrand-cc/v3/marketing-from-associates-step1.html/ref%3Db1_assoc_29" > </map>	Minnesota National Guard’s 1256th Med. Co. reaches year mark at Bliss Spc. Steve Baack Monitor Staff Crew members in one of the UH-60A Black Hawks work on sling load training by moving a connex container. While every Fort Bliss unit is a valuable part of the Army, one of the most vital, yet lesser-known units is the 1256th Medical Company (Air Ambulance) at Biggs Army Airfield. As a member of the Minnesota National Guard, the 1256th was activated February 13, 2003, to process through Fort Hood, Texas, in support of Operation Noble Eagle. From there, the company split into detachments: one to remain at Fort Hood, and the rest distributed among four other detachments: Fort Sill, Fort Riley, Fort Carson and Fort Bliss. The detachment here is a rapid-response medical evacuation company on-call 24 hours a day to transport injured Soldiers and civilians promptly to area hospitals. The detachment comprises three crews, each generally consisting of two pilots, one medic and one crew chief. “A lot of times we have first-up and second-up crews,” said Sgt. Dan Britz, crew chief.” First-up is at the airfield 24 hours. Second-up, you carry a pager and got to be within 30 minutes of the airfield … the third crew is off.” Since their arrival to Fort Bliss, the detachment has completed more than 60 missions. While many of those missions concerned injured Soldiers, most have involved civilians. “Normally if the civilian transport is unable to respond to the accident, or whatever, we’ll fly out there,” said Chief Warrant Officer Aidan Anderson. “A lot of the accidents happen - car accidents – out on Highway 10, or some of the rural parts where ground transport can take anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour and a half to get them back to the hospital, whereas with us it’s usually a matter of minutes. We can usually get them out and up, between the scene of the accident and the hospital, within 15 or 20 minutes.” Unlike their civilian medevac counterparts, when properly configured, either of the two UH-60A Black Hawks can transport up to three critical patients facilitated by a litter-pan carousel. Also, the detachment has rescue hoists and night vision goggles. In the instance that there are multiple injured civilians, it is to the civilian medics’ advantage to take the most critical of the two or more patients and use the detachment to transport the others. Chief Warrant Officer Aidan Anderson, pilot, and Sgt. Dan Britz, crew chief, prep the UH-60A Black Hawk before flight. Most of the remaining calls come from McGregor Range, Dona Ana Range Complex and areas in between. “Typically our calls involve Soldiers that get injured, that are injured on the ranges doing training exercises – things of that nature,” said Anderson. “We’ll fly downrange, scoop them up and we’ll fly them back. With a few exceptions, all the Soldiers we pick up we bring to William Beaumont.” “The majority of the stuff we get for injured Soldiers is dehydration and bug bites,” said Britz. “… Yeah, some medical stuff – chest pains – and that type of thing,” added Anderson. “We’ve only had a couple of instances with the real serious range-related injuries. “As a rule, people are operating pretty safely on the ranges out there,” continued Anderson. “We’ve probably had more civilian than range missions. So you can tell that definitely, from the amount of training that’s going on out there, people are paying attention and doing it safely, which we like of course. We like flying, but of course we’d rather not pick up injured Soldiers on the ranges.” Like anyone else in the Army, the ability to do their job properly comes from regular training and being ready for what’s next. “We get our aircraft prepped, we get our med equipment prepped – that’s all done by 9 o’clock in the morning,” said Anderson. “Either at some point throughout the day, or later at night, we’ll conduct a training flight – usually about an hour and a half … and sometimes the on-call crew will come in and they’ll utilize the aircraft and do more training. It’s a little bit better to do that kind of training because they’re not on the first-up availability. They can go and do a little bit better training and get out a little further away from home here, and be away for little bit longer times.” “They don’t have to watch their fuel,” added Britz. “They’re not just limited to flying an hour and a half. They can fly two and a half hours if they want to.” In addition to their usual training, the detachment teams up with other units and outside agencies not only to improve themselves, but to help the unit or agency meet the goals of their own training or mission. The detachment has teamed up with the El Paso Fire Department, Police Department, the U.S. Border Patrol, and the El Paso Search and Rescue team. They have also trained with 3rd Battalion, 43rd Air Defense Artillery Regiment, 11th ADA Brigade; with members of the 7th Special Forces Group; with Soldiers from 1-56th ADA and others. One of the biggest parts of the job is being ready for the mission, said Anderson. The crews perform various checks that include pre-flight checks, med-equipment checks, mission-equipment checks and inspections of the hoist cable. “It’s more of a ritual really,” said Anderson. “Every morning, it’s kind of the same sequence of events; the same set of steps. Usually it doesn’t take longer than about an hour to prep the aircraft, med equipment and mission equipment. “None of that stuff is necessarily unique to this mission, but we want our aircraft set up so that when we get a call, it’s a matter of getting out, flipping three switches and being down the road,” added Anderson. Some of the more memorable missions occurred early last year. In March, the detachment was called up to transport kids from the scene of a school bus accident. Crews ended up making two trips apiece with both Black Hawks. A month later, the unit was called out to Carlsbad, N.M., to evacuate people stranded by flooding in the area. They moved 44 people to safe ground. “It’s definitely a challenge,” said Anderson of the deployment. “For us, this is a CONUS deployment, so the crew members that are here are set up and doing pretty well here. But we’re still away from families, away from jobs, so it can be challenging.” While no one can be sure how much longer they will be here, they have had a rare opportunity to improve themselves as air ambulance crew members in various capacities. “I think it’s going really well,” said Staff Sgt. PJ McMahon. “It’s giving us an opportunity to fine-tune our skills. We were a very new unit before we got here, so we threw together some good people from a lot of different areas, and had a chance to work together and fine-tune our skills, and become much more efficient than when we got here.”