(Image source from: The Day)

The newest Connecticut National Guard's unit will deploy shortly to render aid and conveyance to the sick and wounded in support of military operations in Southwest Asia.

The newest unit has spent the past two years training with new, specialized helicopters.

"To receive your first medical evacuation aircraft in 2016 and be fully prepared for a deployment less than two years later is a testament to the hard work and dedication of those in our aviation community," Maj. Gen. Thaddeus J.Martin, adjutant general and commander of the Connecticut National Guard, said in a statement ahead of a sendoff observance last month for the aerial medical evacuation unit, officially known as Detachment 2, Charlie Company, 3rd Battalion, 126th Aviation Regiment.

The Unit later this month, the detachment, based in Windsor Locks and commanded by 1st Lt. Matthew Barringer of South Glastonbury doesn't officially deploy.

The first of three Blackhawk helicopters have been received especially outfitted for medical evacuation in the spring of 2016, even before becoming a fully operational unit in the fall of 2016. It represents national guard's new capability.

While transporting patients, aeromedical evacuation, en-route critical care and medical support is provided by thirty members of the detachment deploying, for period of a year. Among members, five members deploying are women. The unit will join 70 guardsmen already deployed in support of operations around the world from Connecticut.

The unit embers underwent a range of training at a facility in Rhode Island that can simulate desert conditions to prepare them for the conditions they'll encounter overseas. The anticipated mountain peaks of 13,800 feet, some pilots went to Colorado to train and understand of how air density affects a helicopter's rotor system and the ability to fly.

"There are a lot of gravity and effects that are placed on the patient that there aren't normally on the ground, whether that be from high maneuver turns or simply just taking off and landing. Things like vibrations can really make a patient uncomfortable and these are things they have to know when they're giving us patients," said O'Neill, one of the flight paramedics.

By Sowmya Sangam