WEST FORT CAVAZOS, Texas — “It’s not just about medicine, but you start to learn tactical medicine at the same time,” Maj Carlos Gonzalez, commander assigned to the 36th Forward Resuscitative Surgical Detachment, said as he looked around the green, fluorescent lit underground training facility tunnel, filled with medical equipment pre-stationed and ready for use.

“For our medics, surgical techs, physicians, all of them just get out there and go beyond the walls of the hospital and get to know the tactical portion of the medicine.”

As Gonzalez and his team prepare the area outside the tunnels, U.S. service members, multinational forces, and civilians from different medical backgrounds gear up for training during the 2023 Joint Emergency Medicine Exercise.

The trainees will learn how to react to and perform medical procedures in a chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear environment.

The CBRN obstacle course that consisted of simulated tasks that are part of a process in which medics would ensure that a patient is treated for wounds using Tactical Combat Casualty Care, decontaminated, and then sent to the higher echelon of care.

In preparation for the lane, trainees don gear designed for a CBRN environment or Joint Service Lightweight Integrated Suit Technology, which includes overgarments, overboots, masks, hoods, and gloves.

“The training team is going to come through; they are going to check each casualty right here,” said Staff Sgt. Kevin Perez, safety cadre and radiology tech, as he points at some of the training manikins in the first tunnel.

After securing the manikins from a contaminated area, trainees will carry them out of the tunnel and onto the next station.

“They will get to the decontamination area where they will have to bring them over on the litter,” Staff Sgt. Tiffanie Hollis, a CBRN specialist, as she does a short walkthrough of the lane. “They will start cutting off all of their JLIST and leaving the pro masks on.”

Hollis’s experience doing reconnaissance as a CBRN specialist only included being decontaminated, but now she is learning the process.

Once the trainees have checked and washed the patient with a decontaminant solution, they will use a joint chemical agent detector. This handheld device detects, identifies, and alarms for contaminants before moving them to sterilized litter.

“As reconnaissance, we don’t do decon; actually, we just ride in strikers,” said Hollis. “Somebody would decontaminate us, so actually learning how to do the decon the proper way is an excellent experience.”

As the trainees move on to the final portion of the CBRN lane, they begin to work on a real-life scenario of what would occur in an operation and damage control resuscitation with the equipment they use in the field outside of JEMX.

“It’s a realistic training that you don’t typically do, but it is still medicine,” said Gonzalez. “So, all this equipment here, we trained to condense it, get what we need to save a person’s life, and treat a patient in an operational environment at the same time.”

Overall, the purpose of JEMX is for trainees to receive professional classroom instruction along with practical training in TCCC, damage control resuscitation/surgery, care of Military Working Dogs, autologous fresh whole blood transfusion, burn management, and Critical Care Air Transport Team capabilities.

For Gonzalez, this event is more than just another field training exercise but an experience that should be shared with all medical personnel.

“Get the best out of JEMX,” said Gonzalez. “That is what we are here for, to let people experience another side of medicine not just within the hospital, but outside in operational environments.”

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