97th Medical Group shines light on Aeromedical Evacuation heritage

  • Published
  • By SrA Levin Boland
  • 97th Air Mobility Wing Public Affairs
ALTUS AIR FORCE BASE, Okla. --  For hundreds of years, the purpose of medical evacuations has stayed the same even without the use of aircraft - to transport patients to higher echelons of care and to preserve the fighting force.

What has changed is the method of transporting the patients. People have gone from using horse-drawn carriages to now using aircraft to transport and treat patients within a matter of minutes.

Members of the 97th Air Mobility Wing recently had the chance to learn about the evolution of medical evacuations and en route care during the 97th Medical Group Aeromedical Evacuation briefing, Nov. 4, 2014.

The briefing was provided by multiple members of the 97th MDG who have personal experience with aeromedical evacuations. One briefer was U.S. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Oscar Salas, 97th MDG medical technician, who spoke about how AE's have improved survival rates downrange.

"An aeromedical evacuation is transporting wounded patients from downrange to more definitive care back to the states," said Salas. "This allows us to transport patients back to their families. We're able to save a lot more lives now than in previous wars."

Following the briefing, two 97th Training Squadron instructors were available to share their stories about their personal AE experiences. 

"I was an AE tech for twelve years," said U.S. Air Force Master Sgt. Marc Nelson, 97th TRS quality assurance training superintendent. "Then I cross-trained to be a loadmaster which I did even more AE. It's good to show the full scope of what we do here. That all our training on the KC-135 and C-17 correlates with the MDG and other facilities on base. You get to see the big picture - the mobility warriors that we are training are doing all types of missions."