REAC/TS travels to Hungary in support of NATO Vigorous Warrior, Clean Care exercises

This spring, ORISE REAC/TS Director Carol Iddins, M.D. and Health Physicist Josh Hayes, Ph.D., participated in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) Vigorous Warrior/Clean Care exercises in Budapest, Hungary. The Vigorous Warrior exercise series is the largest dedicated multinational medical exercise in NATO, organized bi-annually by the NATO Centre of Excellence for Military Medicine and a voluntary host nation. This activity is the first time that the two exercises have been combined.

The main objectives of this year’s Vigorous Warrior exercises were to learn about each country’s different practices; to clarify professional language differences; and to prepare for modern challenges such as ensuring the mobility of field hospitals and testing experiments.

“As one of the contributing countries, we were able to experiment with different scenarios and concepts as a way to practice and test skills and operations with other nations,” said Iddins. “One of the key focus areas was to coordinate the flow of casualties, and of medical care in radiological and nuclear scenarios.”

This year’s exercise was held in conjunction with the Clean Care chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear exercise in Bakonykúti, Hungary. For the exercise, which involved a complex scenario simulating hundreds of casualties per day, numerous medical units and treatment facilities were deployed to train personnel to provide medical support for a NATO Article V operation.