Thursday, June 13, 2013
Waterline
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NAVAIR Pilots Learn to Take a Breath By Andrea Hein Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division Communications Support It can strike without warning, robbing a pilot of the ability to think clearly or react as he or she flies through the air at supersonic speeds. “I was gasping for air and got a little light headed,” said Lt. Pat Bookey, a pilot assigned to Air Test and Evaluation Squadron (VX) 23. “It was pretty eye-opening because my symptoms don’t really present themselves gradually and my blood oxygen level gets pretty low before I actually know it is happening. The symptoms hit me pretty hard.” The culprit was hypoxia, more commonly known as oxygen deprivation, and symptom recognition is key to combating its disastrous effects, which can include a decrease in mental performance, delayed response time, diminished basic motor skills and loss of consciousness. Bookey was one of several F/A-18 pilots who participated in a training event April 16 that combined Naval Air Systems Command’s Manned Flight Simulator (MFS) with a Reduced Oxygen Breathing Device (ROBD) simulator. The purpose was to show pilots what hypoxia really feels like in the cockpit during task-heavy exercises and to emphasize what life-saving steps they should take if it strikes - accessing the emergency oxygen supply and landing the aircraft.
“When a pilot’s workload is very high, the ability to identify hypoxia symptoms is reduced,” said Marine Corps Maj. Tobias van Esselstyn, VX-23 director of safety and standardization. “We combined the ROBD with a high fidelity [realistic] simulator, put F/A-18 pilots in their own environment, gave them a task that is very hard to do and got them hypoxic at the same time.” With traditional hypoxia training, a pilot uses an ROBD while flying a simulator at a computer. While informative, this approach does not require the same workload experienced during flight and results in a higher awareness of symptoms such as light-headedness or reduced motor control. The new combined training demands much more of the pilot’s attention and delays the awareness of hypoxia symptoms, creating a more realistic environment. Lt. Cmdr. Corey Little, an aeromedical safety officer for Naval Test Wing Atlantic, oversaw the training and recorded each pilot’s specific symptoms. “It is good to see based on body type, physical makeup and physical fitness levels how each individual responds to a decrement in oxygen,” Little said. “By doing the hypoxia training in conjunction with a very labor-intensive or task-intensive flight simulation, it allows them to get further into the hypoxia training and really feel the full effects of that lack of oxygen.” Steve Naylor, the MFS F/A-18 simulation lead, said he was encouraged by the experiment’s results.
U.S. Navy photo
Marine Corps Maj. Kevin Ryan undergoes oxygen deprivation training while operating Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division’s Manned Flight Simulator at Naval Air Station Patuxent River. “The problem with hypoxia recognition is each person reacts differently to it,” Naylor said. “During the training, several pilots were surprised at what they felt in the simulator. At least one pilot assumed he would feel the way he did when he was hypoxic 10 years ago in a jet, and the way he felt then was not the way he felt now.” Simulator training helps pilots learn what their personal hypoxia symptoms are and what
actions to take to avoid dangerous mishaps. “When you fly a single piloted aircraft, you are the only one who can help yourself out,” van Esselstyn said. “That’s why most of the time pilots work diligently to know all their procedures cold. It is easy to know what to do, but sometimes recognizing when to do it is the hardest part for us up there flying.”
Navy Nurse Corps Celebrates 105th Birthday By David A. Dickinson WRNMMC Journal staff writer Nurses Week 2013 concluded at Walter Reed Bethesda with the 105th birthday celebration of the Navy Nurse Corps May 13 . During the festivities, Rear Adm. Elizabeth Niemyer, deputy chief, Wounded, Ill, and Injured, Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, and the 23rd director of the Navy Nurse Corps, discussed the legacy of Navy nursing. “I want to take this opportunity to personally say thank you to all the nurses who make up the Navy’s nursing team - active and reserve component nurses, as well as our federal civilian and contract nurse peers,” said Niemyer. “You are the reason the Navy Nurse Corps has enjoyed 105 years of exceptional clinical leadership in support of Navy medicine. Without the entire team working together, we could not have met the operational and health benefit mission requirements asked of our corps.” In 1908, Congress authorized the establishment of a female Nurse Corps within the United States Navy after several years of advocacy by the Chief of the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery. Prior to the establishment of the nurse corps, women had been working unofficially as nurses aboard Navy ships and inside Navy hospitals for nearly 100 years. The charter group of women to formally serve as members of the Navy nursing team, came to be called “The Sacred Twenty.” They were assigned to the Naval Medi-
cal School Hospital in Washington, D.C. “Since the days of The Sacred Twenty, the Navy nursing team has served with honor, courage and commitment,” Niemyer said. “Navy nurses are key members of the global health care network of 63,000 Navy medical personnel around the world involved in the provision of the highest quality safe patient- and family-centered comprehensive and compassionate care to over 9.7 million eligible beneficiaries.” In 1968, the first male Navy nurse, Lt. Clarence Cole, was commissioned in the Navy Nurse Corps. Today, Navy nurses not only serve wounded warriors, their families and others at the Nation’s Medical Center, Walter Reed Bethesda, but are deployed globally, participating in humanitarian and combat support missions with fleet surgical teams, as flight nurses, aboard hospital ships and aircraft carriers, and with their battle buddies in Marine Corps and Army units, Niemyer explained. “An integrated, highly-regarded team of professionals, Navy nurses are uniquely trained and qualified to lead the provision of exceptional health care in extremely diverse environments,” the director of the Navy Nurse Corps concluded. Also during the celebration, Niemyer presented Walter Reed Bethesda Commander, Rear Adm. (Dr.) Alton Stocks, a citation, and pinned him as an honorary Navy nurse.
Photo by Sarah Marshall
Intensive Care Unit nurses Ms. Edith Ameagwali and Navy Lt. Brian Wilson ensure optimum care for patient Jackie Thompson. In a message to Navy Nurse Corps personnel celebrating their 105th birthday, Vice Adm. (Dr.) Matthew Nathan, U.S. Navy surgeon general and chief, U.S. Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, stated, “Today, we honor the brilliant accomplishments, courage, and commitment of Navy
Nurses who helped to set the bar high for military medicine around the world. Our nurses are published and renowned scientists, researchers, teachers, providers and clinicians. Their continued work and dedication have earned them a prominent place in the United States Navy.”