2009 EPISODE 8 of 12: RANGER FIRST RESPONDER

The Ranger's medical First-Responder skill will be tested with the downed pilot scenario.

Now twenty-seven hours into a 59-hour event, the Ranger two-man teams are facing a nonstop round-robin series of events. They will traverse a live-fire stress shoot encountering multiple weapons systems. And then take on a combat throw-and-go grenade range. But today's one event that will test a Ranger's medical First-Responder skill is the downed pilot scenario.

SGT Ryan M. Fifer: "The events Ranger's First-Responder Lane, so all these guys have been through a Ranger's First-Responder medical course or combat life-saver course at some point in their military career. And what it's testing is the ability to move in a simulated combat environment down this lane to injured air crew member. They're told beforehand that there is a downed helicopter. There's simulated fire going on, some smoke, some artillery and they get to the helicopter and they need to put on some impressive fire. They remove the casualty, treat the casualty, and then evacuate the casualty to a safe area, call for medi-vac and fly him to safety."

LTC (Ret) Blain Reeves: "Right now, these guys are really feeling the effects of last night. Their minds are thinking on the task that they gotta do, gotta accomplish and they're not thinking too far beyond that. They're having to dig deep, they're going into the gut-check mode just to get up this next hill and complete this next task. These guys are going a hundred percent at this task because they know that if they don't, the team next to them are going to beat them."

The First-Responder Lane is structured to test the Rangers combat medical abilities. On today's modern battlefield, more times than not, your battle buddy will be first one to your side before a medic can arrive.

Team 31, Antia and Mutchie. This is a lane they expect to do well on. Mutchie is the only Combat Medic left in the competition. Last year he was part of the Cadre scoring the competition, today he's a competitor.

SSG Antia: "I'm feeling fantastic, like a million bucks."