Risk Management Magazine

During good weather, it typically took me 30 minutes to cover the 18 miles from my home in Elizabethtown. However, it had snowed overnight, so I knew it was going to take me much longer than usual. What I didn’t know was it would take me 2½ hours to reach the hospital and, when I did, I’d be in the back of an ambulance.

Technical manuals are designed to ensure Soldiers and civilian personnel follow the proper procedures and heed safety warnings when operating or performing maintenance on equipment.

I was on the roster for one of the initial mixed crews and received a mission not long after starting that night’s duty cycle. It called for us to simply transfer a patient from TQ to a higher level of care in Balad. I considered to this to be a good first mission because it seemed quite routine and would likely be uneventful.