TF Aviation
Story and photos by U.S. Army Sgt. Samantha Parks 4th Public Affairs Detachment
ask Force Aviation and the Camp Bondsteel Fire Department teamed together for a week-long training exercise at Camp Bondsteel Aug. 12-15. The training refreshes each ?re?ghter on skills necessary when responding to a downed aircraft and is conducted quarterly. “Each day we have different crews from the ?re department come out and extract crew members from a UH-60 Black Hawk,” said U.S. Army Chief Warrant Of?cer 4 Gregory Kulick, a member of the Maryland National Guard and safety of?cer for Task Force Aviation. “They need to know how to get the crews out of the aircrafts safely and ef?ciently and get them to medical treatment.” The scenarios ranged from incapacitated pilots to engine ?res and severely injured pilots. The trainers aimed to make the scenarios as realistic as possible. “The training is for our guys to [practice] shutting down an aircraft, [safely] approach it and pulling out the victims,” Assistant Fire Chief Srecko Stalatovic said. “Because you never know what can happen. We need to be up to date. Training is a key of success.” Agron Tahiri, ?re?ghter with the Camp Bondsteel Fire Department, said the exercises went very well and felt the training was a good opportunity to learn from any mistakes they made. “Through the training we develop skills and are ready for emergencies,” Agron said. “If [we] do something wrong, then we know the next time, we are going to do better.”
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