United States Transportation Command

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SCOTT AIR FORCE BASE, Ill. - A few hours after the Haitian earthquake, members of the U.S. Transportation Command Surgeon's Office began a 24-hour watch. The command surgeon activated the Contingency Medical Desk in the command's Deployment Distribution Operations Center to provide 24/7 situational awareness and support for the surgeon and the USTRANSCOM commander.

Much of the intelligence coming from the region was incomplete, but USTRANSCOM workers knew medical and patient movement support would be a huge piece of the recovery efforts in Haiti. A large number of American citizens were injured in the earthquake and needed to be brought back to the United States for treatment.

"An analogy for the key to our response is (that) it's like going to an Olympic diving competition. You can't just show up talented, you also have to build the diving board," said Col. Lawrence Riddles, USTRANSCOM command surgeon. "It isn't like going to one of our cities that has been hit, where you have an infrastructure to build on. The entire infrastructure was destroyed or nonexistent when we got there."

Less than 48 hours after the quake, the command deployed a four-member patient movement situational awareness team to support the U.S. Southern Command Surgeon's Office in Miami, Fla. This team assisted USSOUTHCOM in identifying urgent aeromedical requirements, drafting patient movement contingency operations for the region, training USSOUTHCOM personnel on TRAC2ES (the automated system used to support patient movement), and providing medical and aeromedical evacuation planning expertise.

Several reservists from the Joint Transportation Reserve Unit were activated on special orders to assist in the Command Surgeon's office, the DDOC, and the Global Patient Movement Requirements Center.

"Reservists are the lifeblood of our ability to respond," Riddles said. "They bring an extraordinary amount of capability as well as motivation to help out whoever they can. And they are transparent in their operation. The only time you notice them is when they are absent."

These reservists maintain and accomplish the current mission in support of Operations Enduring and Iraqi Freedom along with the additional tasks and workload of supporting Operation Unified Response for the Haitian earthquake humanitarian assistance and disaster relief efforts.

Through active participation in multiple telephone conferences, a requirement for a Joint Patient Reporting Team and an Aeromedical Evacuation Liaison Team were identified to assist at the airport in Port Au Prince on Haiti. USTRANSCOM deployed a four-person team and Air Mobility Command deployed a two-person team to Haiti to assist and appropriately support patient movement operations.

According to Riddles, because of the extremely limited opportunities to fly directly into Port au Prince, out-of-the-box thinking was required which resulted in teams flying into the Dominican Republic and traveling via ground convoy to Port au Prince. These teams are now setting-up and coordinating the arrival of the Mobile Aeromedical Staging Facility that will be co-located with them.

"The medical members of this response, just like the members of every specialty, depend on their service component partners and their commercial partners," Riddles said. "They are all absolutely critical to get the job done."

The members of these teams, along with GPMRC, partners at AMC and the 618th Tanker Airlift Control Center, as well as multiple governmental and non-governmental agencies, are working in concert to facilitate safe, timely and appropriate patient movement in and out of Haiti.
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USTRANSCOM Surgeon's Office assists with Haitian operations

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