NMRTC Jax, EMF-M trains HSM-50 in medical ops
13 March 2025
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. --
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - The Navy is looking at the future of warfare and with solutions of how to treat wounded are being explored. Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron (HSM) 50 stationed at Naval Station (NS) Mayport recently received casualty evacuation (CASEVAC) training from Navy Medicine Readiness and Training Command (NMRTC) Jacksonville and Expeditionary Medical Facility-Mike Staff Education and Training (SEAT) servicemembers.
“We believe in future operations aircraft of opportunity will be used to move injured personnel and typically the MH-60R wasn’t thought of because it’s primary mission,” said SEAT Department Head Lt. Cmdr. Brad Scoggins. “The Romeos are already on ships, so this aircraft makes sense terms of a distributive maritime operations.”
The “Valkyries” learned critical wartime Knowledge, Skills and Abilities (KSAs) necessary during rescue missions using En-Route prepared transport teams. With assistance from First Coast Navy Fire and Emergency Services at NS Mayport, ground assets ensured a seamless coordination between Navy Medical and aviation crew. Rapid assessment and critical intervention, such as Basic Life Saving skills, will lead to successful transport of patients in a dynamic landing zone.
“Any opportunity that we get to collaborate with our neighboring operational units is an invaluable experience for our junior corpsmen and nurses,” said HM2 Timothy Russell, who assisted with the training. “This also provides our training staff the opportunity to take what we learn from units like HSM-50 and apply it to our own training evolutions to add realism and value.”
Skills learned range from blood transfusions, treatment of vascular injuries, cricothyrotomies, Dx Inhalational injuries, burn care, peripheral lines inserted and monitored and managing shock.
"HSM-50 had a great experience training with the Enroute Care nurses and corpsmen. As Aircrewmen we routinely train in the capacity of first responders to trauma cases. Our goal is to preserve life and load the patient for rapid transport,” said AWRC Nick Satriano, HSM-50 Training Department Lead Chief Petty Officer. “However more often than not when we're deployed and launched on a health services mission we take a corpsmen. Having never trained together we don't know each other's scope of practice which could lead to risky assumptions being made on the spot.”
The 12 medical staff in attendance found the training to be rewarding and hopeful for better management of patient care.
“This portion was only done on the ground due to weather limitation, but in the near future we will work in concert with the same organizations to work on an inflight portion of the training,” Scoggins said.