MCW participates in mock rescues
in Northfield, Stowe

By Maggie Denison
Norwich Guidon Staff Writer

A simulated fall from jagged blue ice left Northfield resident Andrew Zybas stranded until help could arrive, moaning in pain from a compound fracture in his leg and a slight case of hypothermia.

Finally, someone came, but none of it was real, just a drill to test one of Norwich's most prepared companies.

Norwich University's Mountain Cold Weather Company received a call on Friday, Feb. 2, for a mock rescue mission.

"We want to put the MCW cadets in challenging, demanding scenarios so that they have to adapt and overcome certain situations that they will face," said MCW Training and Mountain Rescue Advisor Brian Burk.

Late Friday night, Feb. 2, the rescue team, consisting of sophomores, juniors and seniors, received their orders to find a lost ice climber in Stowe, Vt.

According to senior Donald Braman, a 21-year-old computer information system major from North Kingstown, R.I., this was the first time this year the rescue team will come together in a mock deployment situation and use the skills they have acquired in training.

The team's emergency medical technician, Nathaniel Crow, a 21-year-old psychology major from Leavenworth, Kan., reached Zybas to assess his injuries, while the rest of the team members relayed the rescue sled up the steep terrain and set up a system to carry him off the mountain to the waiting ambulance.

"I have never treated a person in 15 below (zero) and 30 mile-an-hour winds before, so it opened my eyes to something totally different than the rides to the hospital in the ambulance," Crow said.

Observing the mission was Kevin Staudt, a 22-year-old senior accounting major, native of Oaklawn, Ill. Although he couldn't participate because he has a broken wrist, Staudt's responsibility was to be an observer.

"I evaluated the rescue and brought up all good points and things that the team needs work on in the After Action Report (AAR)," Staudt said. "Overall I think they did a good job; they completed their task without any major problems."

The rescue team benefited from this exercise because they have to be prepared for actual rescues like this in the future.

This past summer the rescue team became nationally certified with NASAR's rescue team, so "they have to be ready for anything that can be thrown at them," Burk said.

Now advisors are also planning more mock missions to keep the cadets up to standard, so each rescue can go as well as this one did.

"The cadets need to keep practicing to be prepared for the unexpected call that might come in," Burk said.

The MCW first-year participants, known as "greensticks," and second year candidates had three different scenarios to rescue, involving hikers who had been lost for about 36 hours.

"We received the operations-order, which is a list of information about the mission, at about four o'clock in the morning, and we headed out with all the equipment we needed to find the patient," said Kathleen Dues, a19-year-old, freshman environmental science major from Needham, Mass.

Using the training they have received in the classroom and then taking it and adapting it to the conditions, members of the MCW battled the weather and any other variables, which showed they had to work hard to remember their skills under pressure.

"We have trained for five months, but we have never had to actually apply the skills we had learned in the classroom to the field," said Ian McKenzie, an 18-year-old freshman civil engineer major native from Middleton, Mass.

The mock injured hikers were located on Payne Mountain across from Norwich University's Northfield campus. The company set up a base camp Friday, and that night they received their mission.

"We set up camp and then reviewed some of the things we needed to know for the following day," McKenzie said. "But you will never be totally prepared for what will really happen."

On Saturday, Feb. 3, the three squads set out to accomplish their missions. These tasks were not only physically but mentally challenging, as well. According to Dues, the most difficult part was applying the skills under pressure.

"It is physically and mentally stressful, but in another sense it is really rewarding, because we got our job done," McKenzie said. "We all felt more confident in ourselves."

"From the time we woke up to the time we got back to the shack we were successful," said Tom Sullivan a 20-year-old criminal justice major from Northboro, Mass. "The freshmen worked extra hard under the weather and conditions to accomplish their goals."

"I feel that we are all ready for a real rescue now," Dues said. "Now we know we can do it."

Col. Scott Knoebel, Professor of Military Science, went along on the rescue mission in Stowe and said it took him back to when he was a student at NU.

For Knoebel, a 1976 Norwich graduate, training with the Mountain Cold Weather Company is not something new.

"I came in as a freshman in the Mountain Cold Weather, and I was on the Rescue Team both my junior and senior year," Knoebel said. "It is great to be back with the program."

Knoebel currently oversees the Army ROTC department and the MCW Company, which is a division of the Army department.

According to Knoebel, next year's mission will be tougher, harder, and more challenging, but within the capabilities of all personnel to carry out the rescue.

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