DVIDS – News – Pacific Public Health Command's Radiation Advisory Medical Team Tests Skills at Sagami General Depot Exercise

Sagami General Depot, Japan – The Public Health Service Pacific Radiation Advisory Medical Team conducted an exercise at the Sagami General Depot on March 12.

Maj. Daniel Arguello, PHC Pacific's health physics chief, said the purpose of the exercise is to bring everyone together as a team and practice individual tasks such as proper equipment and taking environmental field samples.

Ultimately, this exercise enabled the team to practice the techniques needed to provide radiology expertise when needed.

Arguello added that the team intentionally left its home station and moved into a warehouse to ensure all necessary equipment and supplies were operational in the event of an emergency.

Arguello said the team was able to deploy equipment smoothly and complete many tasks, considering it was the first time they worked with Hawaii members on this exercise.

“I think it went relatively well,” Arguello said. “I was very happy with how we did.”

Arguello said he looks forward to more frequent joint exercises with more members of the Pacific region.

Staff Sergeant Kevin Stringer, assigned to Tripler Army Medical Center in Hawaii, said bringing team members together for training is beneficial because team members are typically stationed in different locations across the Pacific. Ta.

Stringer said planning the exercise, assembling all the equipment and transporting it to the remote location required a lot of work and coordination, but the actual exercise went smoothly.

“We had never worked together before, but it was a pleasure to work together,” Stringer said. “This is a really important (training) for us to come together as a team, to get to know each other and work together in case an actual incident occurs.”

Stringer said the biggest takeaway was that the team now had a clear picture of what they needed to improve to make the next run go more smoothly.