JOINT TRAINING CENTER, JORDAN 03.07.2020 –
The Civil Defence Department (CDC) and Joint Training Center-Jordan (JTC-J) conducted an emergency response training event Wednesday. The event's intent was to test the overall response time of the CDD during a simulated building fire at JTC-J.
At 10 a.m., a JTC-J fire alarm was pulled, and within minutes, two CDD fire trucks and an ambulance cleared the installation security checkpoint and were on scene.
CDD firefighters immediately entered the building and extinguished the simulated fire. At the same time, they located and evacuated two U.S. Soldiers with simulated airway and leg injuries from the building. CDD paramedics provided rapid on-the-scene medical assessments of the injured before loading them onto the ambulance for emergency transport.
Overall, the CDD response to both the fire and medical injuries was under 10 minutes. Sgt. 1st. Class Stanley Farmer, the ASG-J Fire Marshall, credited the training event's success to the multiagency coordination between the CDD, JTC-J and the Jordan Armed Forces Arab Army (JAF) at the base.
"The CDD has been enthusiastic about partnership and emergency response training," he said, " Lt. Col. Khalid Al-Awaysheh of the JAF was instrumental in the planning phase to ensure we got this training scheduled and completed."
On scene from the CDD were Maj. Mohamad Mousa Al-Dajah, the operations director of Zarqa CDD, and 1st Lt. Hammad Hassan Khawaldeh, the operations officer for the exercise.
They also applauded the emergency response time, which was a five-minute improvement over the time recorded the previous year.
"Training together is always important for the partnership between the U.S. Army and Jordan," said Al-Dajah, "Things went very well this time with great coordination with the JAF."
"These exercises continue to demonstrate our response time and abilities," agreed Khawaldeh.
The CDD and JTC-J will continue to coordinate emergency response training events every six months, according to Farmer, who is at JTC-J with the 655 Regional Support Group, 316 Sustainment Command (Expeditionary). The intent for future events is to build upon the scenarios to include additional training components while maintaining the exemplary response time.
The U.S. has a long-standing military partnership with Jordan in regard to joint training that has endured over multiple administrations.