Well, not really, but some people came pretty close.

Yesterday morning was HEAT:  HMMWV Egress Assistance Training.  HMMWV is an acronym for High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle, aka Humvee.  There are many different types, but here’s one model for reference (photo credit: http://www.americanspecialops.com/photos/marsoc/marsoc-hmmwv.php):

The HEAT exercise took the class to the “rotisseries”, two Humvee body mock-ups mounted to motors that rotate them to simulate vehicle rollover:

Four-man teams of students in “battle rattle” (about 40-50 pounds of gear each including helmets, knee and elbow pads, flak vests with armor plates, several ammunition magazines in pouches, M9 pistols in holsters, and fake foam M4 rifles since real ones would have knocked out a lot of teeth) were strapped in, spun around, and then instructed to get out from the vehicle-upside-down and vehicle-on-its-side positions.  This was insanely difficult.

Humvees look huge, but four people and all their gear seem to shrink the interior of the vehicle to tiny proportions.  Plus you can’t really see seat belt releases or door handles because you can’t move your head around with all your gear restricting your range of motion and line of sight to things nearby and up against your body.  And this is before you roll over.  After the rolling begins, things just get crazy.  The space seems to shrink, your adrenaline skyrockets, your gear gets caught on everything, and it’s a big struggle to find and release your seatbelt, reach and open a door, and get out without breaking your neck.

We did some practice rolling first, including completely upside down, which was scary and painful (it’s nearly impossible to hold yourself and all your gear up even with seat belts (since they’re so slack) so I got to spend some quality time supporting a lot of my body/gear weight on my head).  After the practice rolling, we did two egress exercises.

In the first exercise, we were completely upside down and had to locate a door or doors that were not “jammed” (locked from the outside by the instructors) and escape through them.  Going out the wide open gun turret was not an option as it was “on the ground”.  I was seated in the right rear, and my door opened so I could get out through it which saved me from having to find another door.  Others had to climb from their seats to seats with opening doors, making it that much more difficult and time-consuming for them.

In the second exercise, however, I was in the driver’s seat and we did a 90 degree rollover onto the driver’s side.  We were to escape through the gun turret opening.  This was much more difficult for me because the steering wheel and other obstructions restricted my movement severely and caught everything that could be caught as I was trying to get out: ammo magazines, buttons on my trousers, shoelaces, etc.  I was able to keep moving, keep un-catching and detangling, and eventually fight my way out.  It was only a minute or two, but it seemed like it took half an hour!

I’m glad to say that although I was frustrated by the difficulty of the experience, I did not feel claustrophobic, get panicky, have difficulty breathing, freeze up, or freak out.  A few others did have to fight off panic and took quite a while to calm down, which I can empathize with since I had an anxiety attack the previous day at the shooting range (I’ll write about it in a future post).

We are all bruised and battered, but very happy to have HEAT behind us.

MM