SPECIAL FEATURE :: MILITARY LAB TECHS


Air Force lab techs Senior Airman Jacob Wash- ington (left) and Staff Sargeant Rily Venesky (right) stand in Hamid Karzai International Airport prior to departing Afghanistan.


Photo Courtesy of Air Force Senior Airman Jacob Washington


and Central and South Asia. Venesky forward deployed to the lab team with the 379th Expeditionary Medical Group at Al Udeid Air Base.


Mass casualty By August, the situation at Hamid Karzai International Airport grew chaotic as the Taliban took over the area and thousands of Afghans, in their desperation to flee the Taliban, flocked the airport to make it onto an outbound flight before the August 31 deadline. Hodge was one of only two lab techs working alternate 24-hour shifts at the hospital in Kabul. On the afternoon of August 26,


2021, confusion and chaos turned into horror as one suicide bomber attacked the crowd, setting off an explosion that killed more than 150 Afghans and 13 U.S. service members. Hodge remem- bered the sound of pagers as everyone received the emergency alert. “I was the only on-duty lab tech at that time,” Hodge said. The attack forced troops to quickly adapt their drawdown plans and respond to the mass casualty. “Prior to the attack, teams were preparing to leave the area,” Hodge said. “Suddenly, everything changed, and our main goal shifted from COVID-19 support to blood supply and triage.” “When patients arrived, it didn’t matter who you were,” said Hodge. “We helped anyone who needed it.” Hodge,


26 AUGUST 2022 MLO-ONLINE.COM


along with her Norwegian counterpart and three lab techs, two with the U.S. Navy and one from Great Britain, sup- ported the trauma cases however they could. A lab tech’s job during a mass casualty incident involves managing traumas, “making sure we have whole blood for the patients that need it and taking blood samples for testing,” Hodge explained. “It was chaos at first. There were times a lab tech had to go with the nurses or runner to find out who needed blood and where.” While one lab tech was with the nurses or runner, two lab techs were busy running lab tests on i-STAT and blood typing using EldonCards. The fourth lab tech became a runner for additional blood and lab supplies. They even provided patients toiletries, clothes, snacks, and other supplies sent by the United Service Organizations (USO) for the deployed troops. At the Blood Transshipment Center in


Qatar, Senior Airman Washington was awoken by his supervisor following the suicide bombing in Kabul. Washington said his training prepared him for emer- gencies like this one but acknowledged his experience in Afghanistan was ex- ceptional because, although he works in a large hospital (David Grant USAF Medical Center), it is not a trauma center. “I’m a blood bank specialist,” he said. “I know blood. I know how to give blood. I know who needs blood.” “Over the next couple of days, we shipped about 256 units [of blood prod- ucts] into Kabul through various means because the resources were cut off and a lot of the flights were grounded.” Washington explained, “we needed to get real creative with the ways to get blood there including piggy-backing pallets of blood products on flights with special operations teams that went in on much smaller planes.” The blood went directly to the laboratory in Kabul and was used for civilians, U.S. military services, and other countries’ militaries. “Whoever needed the blood and was being treated as a trauma ca- sualty at that time received the blood,” Washington said. “Doing that was a very eye-opening experience,” Washington said. “It’s really an adrenaline dump like nothing else. You find out exactly who everybody is in that moment.” “It really makes you see the value of what you do firsthand, and I feel like that is something that I will not forget,” Washington said. “We were able to help a lot of people,” Hodge said. “And I’m glad we were there when


that happened because if we hadn’t been there, a lot more people would have died.”


Lessons learned During the mass-casualty (MASCAL) event, it was all-hands on deck. “Just like we practiced in every exercise, I brought our lab trauma kit and cooler contain- ing whole blood,” said Hodge. “It helped that we prepared ourselves for the “what if” scenarios, so when the chaos started, we had at least 100 whole blood units in our inventory. We were constantly in contact with the Blood Transshipment Center in Qatar in case we needed more.” Hodge also explained, “When we left Bagram, we made sure to bring all the supplies to Kabul that we knew we would need: i-Stat CG4+ cartridge tests, i-Stat CG8+ cartridge tests, PT/ INR tests, cardiovascular tests, COVID- 19 tests, etc.” Hodge shared that there were numerous MASCAL exercises performed at Bagram and Kabul to prepare everyone. Emergency planning exercises also included a plan for an alternate hospital location in case the current one was compromised. After the bomb attack, Hodge’s team still had to shut down the hospital at the airport in Kabul. “We needed to com- plete the retrograde,” Hodge said, ex- plaining the process involves destroying patient records and other sensitive doc- uments for safety as part of the evacua- tion. Once the hospital was shut down, she boarded the aircraft leaving Kabul with two important lessons. Lesson one: “Don’t take for granted what freedoms we have — always remember those Sol- diers, Sailors, Marines and Airmen that paid the ultimate sacrifice to have the freedoms we have.” Lesson two: “Always take training seriously because at any given time, your role can change, and fill that role to the best of your ability whether you are part of security or triage team.


The Defense Health Agency (DHA) is a joint, inte- grated Combat Support Agency that enables the Army, Navy, and Air Force medical services to provide a medically ready force to combatant commands in both peacetime and wartime. The DHA uses the principles of Ready Reliable Care to advance high-reliability practices across the Military Health System by improving system operations, driving innovative solu- tions, and cultivating a culture of safety.


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