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News | Dec. 8, 2021

Incirlik Airmen certify on TCCC

By Senior Airman Derek Seifert

The 39th Medical Group conducted Tactical Combat Casualty Care training, the newly required Department of Defense medical care program to qualify medical professionals and 39th Civil Engineer Squadron explosive ordnance disposal members December 4-5, 2021. 

TCCC was established by the U.S. Special Operations Command in 2002 and is now the accepted battlefield prehospital care. The DOD began the transition from Self-Aid and Buddy Care to TCCC in 2019 to ensure medical professionals are prepared to provide early, life-sustaining medical care to wounded personnel and limit further causalities and achieve mission success.

The 39th MDG has been certified as a TCCC training center and recently qualified seven instructors.

“This weekend’s training will help with the transition from SABC to TCCC because we’ve made huge steps with the program altogether,” said Staff Sgt. Arlinda Haliti, aerospace medical technician assigned to the 39th MDG. “We’ve created the curriculum, we’re doing a lot of hands-on training that’s focused on the evidence-based practices of TCCC and putting it all together for the students at Incirlik. This is a Defense Health Agency transition where all the medical corps from the Navy, Marines, Army and Air Force are making the transition to TCCC. Through evidence-based practice, these skills will help our causalities in different areas of operations that we would be in.”

There are three phases of TCCC: care under fire, tactical field care and tactical evacuation care. The participants of this course will be able to apply what they previously learned from SABC and use the new skills to further their medical knowledge.

“[TCCC] is more advanced, it takes medical care up a whole other level with more invasive techniques that they just don’t touch on in SABC,” said Tech. Sgt. Rhon Dawkins, logistics section chief assigned to the 39th CES EOD flight. “We’ve learned how to do tracheas, learning the importance and different methods of managing hemorrhaging and learned how to prevent hypothermia.”

TCCC provides a more practical and hands-on training not only instructional lectures, compared to SABC, but also explains the ‘why’ of these practices and gives students the opportunity to apply the skills, explained Capt. Ashley Stripling, a clinical nurse assigned to the 39th MDG.

“We also have the simulation portions that you don’t get with SABC that gives you the hands-on reinforcement that you get with TCCC,” said Stripling.

Based on career field requirements, all DOD personnel will be fully qualified on TCCC in the upcoming years with and will be required to re-qualify every three years.

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