Team Summit Germany Blog: Dan Runte
Slide Show
Team Summit drivers Jason Line, teammate Greg Anderson, Pro Mod racer Rickie Jones and Summit Racing/BIGFOOT pilot Dan Runte, are in Germany this week to visit the troops at the Ramstein Air Force base in a tour arranged by Armed Forces Entertainment. Today, Dan Runte gives us his perspective on Team Summit’s second day at the Ramstein facility.
Today’s activities really drove home the reason for our visit. We spent the morning and early afternoon visiting the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, giving us a chance to meet some tremendous men and women. We started in the ICU, where we were once again greeted by Dee Dee Price, an RN we met during our visit last year who has worked in this 12-bed unit for six years. She indicated that the ICU had been extremely busy since the summer, and quickly brought us up to date on the condition of several of the patients currently there.
In listening to her speak, we were struck by the incredible challenges of these people’s work, and even more impressed by the incredible passion, spirit and dedication of every person working that floor. We know that every one of their patients receives the best care possible beyond that of their medical needs–truly a remarkable feat.
Although visits are fairly restricted in this environment, we were fortunate enough to spend a little time with a young soldier named Brandon, who hails from Virginia and had just arrived over the weekend. Once he saw my drag racing cohorts, he was more than ready to talk about the track outside Richmond, and we ended up having a great and animated conversation with him.
Our next stop after the ICU was the 23 Delta wing, where a patient’s average stay is only two and a half days before being transferred either back home or to another floor for additional treatment. Lt. Lewis took us in to see several patients, and we also had the pleasure of meeting Major Favor, the head nurse. She pointed out how monitoring the caretakers’ health was equally important to avoid Secondary Traumatic Stress. She told us about the various exercises and team building activities the staff does to help deal with the tremendous challenges they face every single day--something I believe very few even consider when thinking about the job these people are doing.
We then visited two other wings, 10 Delta and 13 Delta, visiting with both American and NATO personnel before heading down to the cafeteria. After a quick lunch, we signed autographs and handed out goody bags for several hours to the troops as they came down to eat, which proved to be a nice way to wrap up our time at the LRMC.
During our time in the cafeteria we were able to see a few familiar faces from last year's visit including Command Sergeant Major O’Neal; he stopped by to thank us for coming back and a told us of sending his father to last year’s Atlanta NHRA race and the tremendous time he had. Naturally, between Greg, Jason and Jim Greenleaf from Summit Racing, they made sure to let him know to contact them if he wanted to go to a race in the future, which actually may happen as he is returning stateside in April.
We then went on to the USO’s Wounded Warrior Center, which is a small recreational facility located a short distance from the LRMC. It gives recovering patients not requiring hospitalization a place to go and relax, watch a movie, check e-mail, play a video game or just enjoy some company. We spent some time there talking to the staff and any soldiers who stopped in, handing out more goody bags and eating race car-shaped cookies the staff had made.
We wrapped up our day by stopping by the 86th CASF, which stands for Contingency Aeromedical Staging Facility. Its purpose is to coordinate the safe transportation of any and all patients. As our host Major Schultie explained, the Ramstein CASF is actually the world wide hub for this effort, with over 128,000 patients moved since its opening in 2003. Their primary goal is to get the injured personnel to a safe environment as quickly as possible, with everything revolving around the patient. The CASF also includes the only USO facility embedded in a base. The USO staff, led by Karolina Wignal, plays a vital role in the transportation procedure, giving those in transition somewhere to relax while they await their flight.
As you can imagine, it was a busy and emotional day for all of us, but one that we all agreed was extremely rewarding. We felt privileged to spend time with the brave young men and women of our armed forces, and were blown away by their tremendous spirit, dedication and drive--truly a remarkable bunch and we feel so fortunate to be here with them.
Tomorrow we’ll be leaving Ramstein and heading up to another facility in Spangladehm to visit with the troops there and seeing what promises to be some interesting demonstrations. We’ll get one of our drag racing authorities to come back and tell you all about it!
