“Boom!” exclaimed one chief to simulate a large explosion in hangar bay three. “Let’s go. Call it in!”
With a 1MC announcement, a mass casualty drill was in effect only 24 hours after USS John C. Stennis (CVN 74) started its steady
move toward San Diego. Fire and medical teams poured into the hangar bay within minutes.
To make the drill more realistic, more than 45 Sailors attending School of Ship were recruited to role-play casualty victims scattered
throughout the hangar bay. The Flying Squad rushed in to assess the situation and found that almost a dozen victims were covered
with debris.
“The drill was primarily held for medical to meet the requirements of their training,” said Senior Chief Damage Controlman Terry Glimm.
“Our damage control team provided the means by which to extract the casualties for medical. But, I had to start a few imaginary fires
in order to slow the Flying Squad down, because they are so fast.”
The Flying Squad, a team of highly trained first responders from various departments, helped to quickly douse the make-believe flames.
After the simulated fires were extinguished, the Jaws of Life were wheeled in to cut through caution tape and wooden pallets, which
symbolized shards of metal debris that were twisted by the imaginary explosion. This allowed the medical teams to move in, assess the
various conditions of potential patients and carefully extract the victims and move them below decks for treatment.
Victims were instructed to call for help and complain of various pains. Some needed assistance walking away from the scene, others had
to be carried out on stretchers. Many make-believe casualties pretended to have serious burns and coughed from smoke inhalation, some
lay on the deck after being instructed to simulate a broken leg, while others walked around pretending to be stunned.
“The drill went smoothly even though we have some new medical staff,” said Hospital Corpsman 3rd Class Randall Montgomery, who helped
coordinate casualty treatment in medical.  “The reason for this type of drill can be summed up in one word: readiness.  There’s always the
possibility of something going wrong, and to have everyone trained and ready to go just in case something does happen gives us a chance
to better ourselves and our skills.”