Frag Out! Magazine
Issue link: https://fragout.uberflip.com/i/840553
The information must be collected by someone – this requires to send a media correspondent or reporter to the place where the story is going on. It is not so bad when it comes to news on accidents, riots, or even natural disasters – in such places, the risk that the reporter might get injured is relatively low. The problem appears when the reporter is sent to a war zone what increase risk of being injured, kill or kidnapped. If a worst scenario happens and the journalist in the front line gets hit, then, unfortunately, it might be impossible to provide him or her medical help or it may appear that such help is not the priority at that specific moment. What then? In such situation, it is half the success when the journalist or his or her companions are able to apply first aid. But to do that, they must know how to do that in the first place. Luckily for them, first aid is not some sort of secret knowledge and it might be acquired during training courses. On 8-9 April 2017, a TCCC-based training course for war correspondents was held in Warsaw. The initiative was presented by Darek Prosiński, Polish photographer and cinematographer (with experience for hot zones Iraq, Afghanistan and Ukraine) who already completed similar training. As Darek says: among all the members of the team of correspondents with whom I traveled to countries at war, I was the only one who had any medical knowledge and medical equipment, in case someone got injured. For all that periods, I felt psychic discomfort. I thought to myself: what if I get shot or injured? Who is going to help me? Last time, one of my friends told me that he used to think the tourniquet attached to my body armor is... a walkie talkie. On numerous occasions, we were exposed to artillery fire, crossfire, we often had to hide from snipers... Finally, I decided that I must teach my colleagues how important it is to know the basic first aid and that we must be prepared if we are one team. The largest issue was the constant lack of time due to the amount of work we had. But, on numerous occasions, we learned that the content presented during courses organized by various institutions was too general in terms of first aid on the battlefield. Thanks to the courtesy of the Eagle- Med System combat medicine training company, we finally launched a course and to taught the boys a lot of useful things. The course lasted two days and its goal was to present the main reasons for casualties on a battlefield that might be avoided. The course had extensive practical part focused on use of individual first aid equipment and the procedures of MARCHE protocol. www.fragoutmag.com