Senior Airman Maja Schoop, 8th Medical Operations Squadron, is evacuated by members of the 8th Civil Engineer Squadron during the Adaptive Focus exercise at Kunsan Air Base, South Korea, on Tuesday. (Jason Colbert / USAF)
SEOUL — What happens when a car bomb explodes at a small base and overwhelms its tiny hospital with patients?
That’s what airmen at Kunsan Air Base, population 3,000, had to decide Wednesday after a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device "blew up" in an open field and caused 20 mock casualties.
It was one of several simulated terrorist attacks that airmen responded to during this week’s Adaptive Focus exercise.
The training tests how well troops — usually first responders, like firefighters, explosive ordnance disposal experts and police — would respond to a terrorist attack. It also tests how well the wing commander makes decisions, said Col. Fredrick Choi, head of U.S. Forces Korea’s Antiterrorism/Force Protection Division.
During the exercise, which began Monday and ended Wednesday, Kunsan airmen did a "fantastic" job, he said.
"Their procedures are very sound. Everybody knew exactly what they were doing. Really, I’ve got nothing but compliments for what they have done," he said.
Airmen had to respond to scenarios that included an envelope that was found containing white powder and a chemical device hidden in a backpack that detonated inside a building.
When the car bomb exploded, the extra patients who couldn’t be treated at Kunsan’s hospital were sent to South Korean hospitals, as would happen in a real emergency. That scenario was designed to test how well Kunsan’s medical system would work under stress, Choi said.
A team of 25 USFK evaluators — including seven from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency in Washington — ran the exercise.
Adaptive Focus is held once a quarter at a different USFK base, and was last held at Kunsan in 2006. The next exercise will be held at Yongsan Garrison in September.
