| Ohio National Guard specialty units train for extreme crisis situations |
1194th Engineer Company unit public affairs representative CAMP ATTERBURY, Ind.—If a major catastrophe—such as a building collapse or a nuclear detonation—happened in Ohio, who would help to resolve the crisis? Troops from the Ohio National Guard’s Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear and High-yield Explosive (CBRNE) Enhanced Response Force Package, or CERFP, recently became the first team certified by the U.S. Army Northern Command (ARNORTH) to be able to do just that. The CERFP is comprised of a select group of troops headquartered by the 155th Chemical Battalion in Middletown. The CERFP consists of four elements—search and extraction, decontamination, medical and command and control—and is comprised of chemical, engineer, and medical units from throughout the state. The team provides immediate response capabilities to search damaged buildings, evacuate areas and structures that may be in a danger zone, rescue trapped casualties, decontaminate personnel and perform medical triage. The Chillicothe-based 1194th Engineer Company is the search and extraction, or S&E, element of the CERFP. The team’s main mission is to help respond to a major crisis situation. The S&E team recently took part in a certification exercise and was evaluated by ARNORTH. The evaluation consisted of three parts—reinforcing a structurally compromised building, moving three 2,000-pound blocks 30 feet back from a road using hand tools, and searching for and extracting bodies from a rubble pile full of tunnels and caverns. The exercise was conducted at the Indiana National Guard’s Camp Atterbury training area. More than 200 Ohio National Guardmembers participated. Team Commander 2nd Lt. Travis Ressler said the point of the exercise was to earn validation from ARNORTH. “We are now the first fully-certified operational unit of this type that can be called out if disaster strikes, be it man-made or natural,” Ressler said. “The team exceeded all the expectations that were put to it. It was expected that we would take over eight hours to complete the missions that were assigned to us. We were able to do it in four.” Ressler said this is the first full validation of any National Guard CERFP unit. “There are other CERFP units in other states that may have a medical unit or a decontamination unit or both,” he said. “Ohio is the first state to have certified both of those and a search and extraction team. The S&E team is trained for search and extraction, as well as confined space rescues, vertical and horizontal rope rescue and medical triage.” Staff Sgt. Robert Kolodny of Cleveland, a squad leader on the S&E team, said the exercise helped to test his mental and physical stamina. “We had to do extremely complex tasks in very adverse conditions,” he said. “This helped to reinforce all of our training. This showed the significance of being the best possible at what we do.” Ressler said the hardest parts of the certification process were the physical challenges. “We were required to spend up to four hours at a time in protective suits in over ninety degree heat and up to seventy percent humidity in order to simulate working in a mock biohazard environment,” he said. “The temperature inside the suits is twenty degrees higher than that of outside. This is not the easiest task. You have to be in very good physical shape in order to be able to manuever and survive.” |
