PETERSON SPACE FORCE BASE, Co.— The 53rd Network Operations Squadron, 960th Cyberspace Wing received Tactical Combat Casualty Care from five volunteer Airmen of the 3rd Combat Weather Squadron, March 4, 2023 at Peterson Space Force Base, Colorado.

As part of the Air Force-wide initiative to phase out Self Aid Buddy Care and implement TCCC, the squadron was tasked in January to re-certify with the new medical care concepts—many of whom, as reservists, have not received hands on medical training since Basic Military Training.

The training aims to provide more combat-intensive medical care methods and capitalize on the whole Airmen concept.

“The Air Force is changing the training from SABC, because they found that in the battlefield most people were dying from blood loss not airway and circulation,” said U.S. Air Force Senior Master Sgt. Rebecca Zenner, 53rd Network Operation Squadron interim senior enlisted leader.

“It is super important training since as reservists we don’t deploy often and many of us haven’t had this training in years. This serves as a refresher and will make us more effective in the field.”

The training was coordinated by U.S. Air Force Technical Sgt. Kyle Mackey who previously deployed with the Combat Weather Squadron when he was on active duty. Mackey leveraged his relationships to bring the training to his Squadron.

“Mackey was a part of our unit and reached out to us to provide the course to his Squadron,” said Tech Sgt. Julian Davis, a weather forecaster with the 3rd Combat Weather Squadron and Combat Life Saver certified instructor.

“Everyone is restructuring across the Air Force to implement current Airmen integration. TCCC is hands-on and everyone needs to be trained to the tier one system in order to be deployed,” said Davis, a native of West Virginia and 11-year veteran.

Davis has been deployed to Jordan and Syria and attested to the effectiveness of the skills he was certified to teach. During a mass call event he was able to perform combat life saving methods and render aid where needed.

“Anytime I do medical training it excites me because it is pertinent to the current situations we need to go into when we deploy and it is much better suited than SABC,” said Davis.

“It really opened my mind when we received the training from 68W, Army medics, who have first-hand knowledge and have been rendering medical aid their entire career.”

Tech Sgt. Julian Davis, Tech Sgt. Kyle Alexander, Airman 1st Class Emiliano Lozano, Staff Sgt. Adam Smith and Airmen 1st Class Branden Woodward of the 3rd Combat Weather Squadron provided instruction and ran the squadron through the crawl, walk and run stages of the course.

The team provided the squadron with multiple scenarios, one of which being that the SCIF (sensitive compartmentalized information facility) had been hit with indirect fire. Airmen were tasked with maneuvering cadavers and identifying the most critical injuries first through the MARCH acronym ( massive hemorrhage, airway, respirations, circulation, head injury/hypothermia).

“I am glad the training has improved and more people are getting it,” said U.S. Air Force Master Sgt. Julie Coulter, a former active duty Security Forces airman. “In Security Forces, I got this training regularly, but this is the first time in Cyber we’ve done hands-on training since 2012.”

Coulter has deployed twice to combat theaters and has a brother who is a Navy EOD veteran that was seriously injured during combat. His life was saved by the medical aid that was rendered to him by his battle buddies.

“It is triggering and such important training—I teach my son how to use tourniquets and he is 18.”