Medivac Helicopter Go See it

So on Wednesday the scouts had a chance to go and check out the medivac helicopters over on Landsthul.  This is not something that is done very often at all so it was really cool that they were able to do it.

 

Their first station was seeing the actual black hawk helicopter.  The soldier told them all about the helicopter when he could get a word in edge wise.  A lot of the kids were very excited and kept talking over the poor guy.  I didn't know that they can go up to 140 mph and can go from the France Germany border all the way to the Czech border without fueling up.  I think about 5 hours of flight time.

 

This is a picture of the whole copter - there were about six of them sitting out on the flight line.  We even saw them moving one on the ground as we were walking out there.

 

AJ and Michael helped load a patient onto the helicopter.

 

They said they usually do this in 30 seconds since they are normally flying into a hot LZ.  That middle piece you see there can hold six litters, three on each side.

 

Of course one of their favorite parts was being able to crawl all around the helicopter

 

AJ's turn inside the cockpit

 

AJ ready to head out in the helicopter!

 

The second part of the tour consisted of snacks and a documentary about the medivacs.  I think it was a little bit advance for this age of kids, because it showed a lot of wounded soldiers and civilians so I am hoping that what they got out of it was that these people save lives.

 

The third and final station was about the medics themselves.  They showed the kids how to stop a wound that was bleeding heavily.  Here Michael is helping Daddy with his bleeding arm.

 

AJ was helping Andre, the key thing the medic said was pressure, pressure, pressure.

 

This is called an Iraqi bandage.  You can see that part sticking up - it actually keeps extra pressure on the wound.

 

Here AJ volunteered and is putting on a tourniquet, a homemade one with a stick.  She was really good to tell them how to do it even if they didn't have any first aid equipment with them.

 

I am not sure if you can see all the needles in that thing, there are at least ten of those needles in it.  This is for if you need to stick it into the bone, like the chest bone.

 

Look at Michael's face - he is a little worried about that thing.  She was jamming it into a piece of wood to show it to them.

 

The boy with the orange shirt, under the blue scout shirt, is holding onto the tube that came out of that and it was so stuck in that wood that none of the kids could pull it out.  We figured that if that was being jabbed into you then there are other wounds that would make it so you wouldn't feel it.  All in all it was a really cool outing with the scouts!!!