7th MDG members sharpen IPPD skills

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Kia Atkins
  • 7th Bomb Wing Public Affairs
DYESS AIR FORCE BASE, Texas --  The 7th Medical group hosted training for members of its In-Place Patient Decontamination team here, Sept. 2-Sept. 5, 2014.

Medical group staff stood up a functional IPPD unit for training purposes to practice decontaminating personnel affected by a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive weapons attack before they enter the clinic for further care.

Fourteen members from the IPPD team, two members from the triage team and two members from the manpower and security team took part in the training to better their readiness in the event of a real-world scenario.

"The IPPD setup has many parts," said Maj. Scott Walker, 7th Aerospace Medicine Squadron dentist and IPPD team lead. "Most of the team is composed of dental personnel who have no formal training about IPPD. This training is critical to us being truly mission ready. We must not only understand how IPPD works, but how to work with the triage and manpower teams to get patients triaged, through IPPD, and into the medical treatment facility safely and in a timely fashion."

The purpose of decontamination is to remove or reduce any potential contaminant from the patient's body or clothing and prevent further exposure and spread of disease.

"In an event where the IPPD is activated, our main objective is to keep the hazardous material from getting into the medical treatment facility," said Walker. "By conducting IPPD, we allow the providers inside the medical facility to do their job without the fear of having hazardous material on the patient."

The training provided the IPPD team an in-depth experience, constructing a decontamination facility using four personnel wearing protective gear, and reaching mission-capable status to receive patients. In this situation, mission-capable status must be achieved within 15 minutes to allow other medical personnel to bring the facility to fully-functional status within 20 minutes of an emergency notification.

Members of the 7th MDG's IPPD team constructed the decontamination facility and got it ready for patient care in 18 minutes, well under the 20-minute time limit.

In the event of a CBRNE attack, the IPPD team would then cut patients' clothes off, wash them with soapy, warm water, then rinse the patient and place him or her in blankets before they are carried in the clinic.

"This training really helped, especially considering that most of us were just put on the IPPD team," said Airman 1st Class Bruno Falcone, 7th AMDS dental technician. "Hands-on training is important because it's easier to perform tasks such as putting on powered air purifying respirator suits and constructing a decontamination facility when you can physically be a part of it rather than just reading how to do it in a computer based training module."