Report: Training revamped after 2005 collision

[unhappycamper]

Report: Training revamped after 2005 collision
By Andrew Scutro - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Sep 17, 2008 6:15:59 EDT

NORFOLK, Va. — For the crew of the submarine San Francisco, it was lucky their top corpsman wasn’t one of the wounded when the sub crashed into an undersea mountain.

When the San Francisco collided with a submerged mountain at high speed in the Pacific on Jan. 8, 2005, 90 percent of the 138 crew members were wounded, some seriously. One sailor, Machinist’s Mate 2nd Class Joseph Allen Ashley, died from his injuries.

The independent duty corpsman, now-Chief Hospital Corpsman (SS) James Akin, was one of the few not injured in the violent collision and was able to tend to his shipmates.

And according to a recent article in the journal Military Medicine, the submarine force has responded to that mass casualty event with increased training and crew knowledge.

Among the responses noted in the August article are a “dedicated educational element” at the Naval Undersea Medical Institute in Groton, Conn., that focuses not on medical care but “secure satellite communications, secure Internet chat groups, and other mechanisms that were used during this event.”


Rest of article at: http://www.navytimes.com/news/2008/09/navy_sanfranreport_091608w/%2e