EXCLUSIVE: North East Medics head to Afghanistan
Story Highlight
50 reservists from 201 Field Hospital are doing a 3 month tour in Afghanistan, where theyll work at the Camp Bastion Hospital saving the lives and limbs of injured soldiers. The unit consists of a Regimental Headquarters (RHQ) in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, A Detachment at Newton Aycliffe, B Detachment at Newcastle-Upon-Tyne and C Detachment at Norton near Stockton-On-Tees.
Fifty TA medics from 201 Field Hospital are on their way to a three month deployment to Afghanistan where they'll use their life saving expertise in the cutting edge military hospital in Camp Bastion.
After a year and a half's training, they spent a week completing an intense, real-time and realistic emergency exercise.... and we had EXCLUSIVE access to see just how real it was:
A detailed mock-up of Camp Bastion’s Hospital was created to prepare the medical staff for the clinical pressures they will face in theatre.
The medics were joined by a team of amputee actors and veterans, who used their personal trauma experiences and realistic make-up and prosthetics to simulate the kind of injuries that might happen on tour...They remained in character throughout a scenario to ensure the training experience iwas intense and realistic, helping improve performance in the treatment of catastrophic battle field injuries.
It was grisly, but it wasn't real!
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Listen to interviews with just some of the key members of the team:
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