Every two years, all Aerospace Medical Technicians regardless of duty title or station must complete an Emergency Medical Technician’s refresher course, which took place in January at the Security Forces training compound off Tinker Air Force Base.
Tech Sgt. Atheana Cooper, 72nd Medical Group executive officer and EMS coordinator, coordinated the week-long training exercise with the help of Tinker Paramedic and Firefighter Sean Barnette.
“It’s an EMT refresher class that will recertify all the Airmen in the class to continue on with their EMT license,” Barnette said.
This particular refresher course included 26 Airmen from as far away as Pittsburgh going through two separate scenarios in order to complete the Human Trafficking and Medical/Trauma requirements of the training.
The first scenario involved human trafficking and took place in a room staged with trash, prescription pill bottles and bottles of alcohol that Airmen were required to inspect and utilize for more information in treating their patient.
“This scenario is our ‘trafficking in persons’ scenario, which is mandatory per the Air Force,” Cooper said.
“The AF requires a CBT (computer-based training) be completed. I choose to do a scenario so the students can get a hands-on feel for the medication and assessment of the patient.”
Cooper explained the scenarios are based off situations Airmen could potentially face.
“This is like being in the real world” Cooper said. “How do they get in? Do they get in? Do they see the alcohol? Are they going to look at the pill bottles on the floor to see what they could’ve possibly taken? We especially want them to spot the heroine, the pancake syrup on the spoon.”
During the first scenario, the actor playing the patient only spoke Spanish, adding another layer of complication for the medics to work through.
“We’ve been around for a minute in the Air Force and we’ve seen a lot of stuff, so really the scenarios are whatever our brains can come up with,” Cooper said.
The second scenario, occurring on the grounds outside of the compound, was set up to portray an incident involving a driver going into a diabetic emergency and hitting members of a crowd participating in a protest with their car.
During this scenario, Airmen were required to be aware of all of the potentially injured parties on the scene and ensure they treat all of the medical and trauma injuries involved.
“There’s a lot going on,” Barnette said. “These situations do happen from time to time, unfortunately. We can have a medical emergency and trauma emergency at the same time, and over the past few days we’ve gone over the assessments and things that they’ll get to put to practice while we try to evaluate everyone.”
During each scenario, Airmen must determine what is happening in their surroundings among the chaos and identify and treat patients accordingly. How they handle each scenario determines whether or not they pass the course.
“It gives an opportunity to all the participants to be actively engaged in doing something in the scenarios,” Barnette said. “They have to identify and treat each patient, and it gives them a wide variety of injuries to treat.”
National Human Trafficking Hotline
January is National Slavery and Human Trafficking Awareness Month, and everyone can benefit from knowing the forms it can come in, how to spot it and how to eliminate it. The National Human Trafficking Hotline defines human trafficking as modern human slavery that can come in the form of sex and labor trafficking. Oklahoma’s highway system makes the state vulnerable to this type of crime.
In 2018, there were 121 cases of human trafficking reported in Oklahoma. Of the human trafficking cases reported, 91 were of sex trafficking, 13 were of sex and labor trafficking, 10 were of labor trafficking and 7 were of unspecified types of human trafficking. There are more than 40.3 million victims of human trafficking globally.
Recognizing Human Trafficking:
It’s important to be aware of the potential signs of human trafficking and to look out for it within communities and while traveling:
· Does the person appear disconnected from family, friends, community organizations or houses of worship?
· Has a child stopped attending school?
· Has the person had a sudden or dramatic change in behavior?
· Is a juvenile engaged in commercial sex acts?
· Is the person disoriented or confused, or showing signs of mental or physical abuse?
· Does the person have bruises in various stages of healing?
· Is the person fearful, timid or submissive?
· Does the person show signs of having been denied food, water, sleep or medical care?
· Is the person often in the company of someone to whom he or she defers? Or someone who seems to be in control of the situation, where he or she go or who they talk to?
· Does the person appear to be coached on what to say?
· Is the person living in unsuitable conditions?
· Does the person lack personal possessions and appear not to have a stable living situation?
· Does the person have freedom of movement? Can the person freely leave where they live? Are there unreasonable security measures?
Reporting Human Trafficking:
Report human trafficking by calling 1-888-373-7888 or the Homeland Security tip line at 866-347-2423. Help on base is available by contacting Tinker's Sexual Assault Prevention and Response team at 734-7272 or 734-9293.
For more information on human trafficking, warning signs and how to help, visit https://humantraffickinghotline.org/.