Wounded care at sea

Until August 25, 2025, the partial exercise Role2Sea 2025 will take place in the western Baltic Sea. The German Navy and the Bundeswehr's medical service are involved. The aim of the maneuver is, within the framework of the overarching exercise series Quadriga 2025, to ensure medical care at sea, but also to practice the rescue chain and the handover of the injured from sea to land into the civilian healthcare system.

Medical care at sea is essential for all maritime operations and ensures the readiness of national and international armed forces. In Role2Sea, the medical support at sea at NATO Level Role 2 practices advanced medical care in the operational area (e.g., surgery, intensive care, X-rays, laboratories, preclinical measures). With the Maritime Rescue Center (RZ See), the German Navy fulfills a NATO requirement for the German armed forces.

The RZ See is a permanently installed component of the sea supply ship (German: Einsatzgruppenversorger EGV) "Frankfurt am Main." It includes two medical operating rooms, a ward with more than 40 beds, various specialists, and laboratories. The approximately 45 soldiers of the supply station, also referred to as the integrated maritime emergency rescue center (iMERZ), are intensively trained under realistic conditions during this exercise to provide medical care adequately in case of emergency. Actors will be elaborately made up and prepared as casualties for this purpose.

The German Navy collaborates closely with the civilian and military partners of the rescue chain. Injured persons, after preclinical care on board, are transported by the RZ See for further medical care, among other things, with helicopters from the Federal Police, the Maritime Command, and the German Army, or on land with ambulances from the professional fire department to civilian hospitals, such as the University Medicine Rostock and the Südstadt Hospital Rostock.