Frank Butler

Dr. Butler is a former Navy SEAL platoon commander who went on to attend medical school at the Medical College of Georgia. Dr. Butler's diving medical expertise includes 6 years at the Navy Experimental Diving Unit, where he led the largest experimental oxygen dive series in U.S. history and other research efforts that have proven invaluable to SEAL diving operations. Dr. Butler also developed the decompression procedures and medical emergency procedures for the SEAL Dry Deck Shelter (DDS) and SEAL Delivery Vehicle (SDV) operations. He treated hundreds of cases of decompression sickness and CNS oxygen toxicity while at NEDU. He also participated as a diver-subject in many of the experimental dive series there, personally suffering both decompression sickness and 3 episodes of central nervous system oxygen toxicity (including two convulsions). Dr. Butler later founded and led the Navy SEAL Biomedical Research Program for 15 years. During that time, he pioneered the development of Tactical Combat Casualty Care (TCCC), a novel set of evidence-based, best practice battlefield trauma care guidelines that has now been recognized as the major advance in prehospital combat casualty care achieved during the recent conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. TCCC has been credited with saving the lives of many hundreds of casualties from those wars. Dr. Butler has over 150 publications in the medical literature. His awards include the U.S. Special Operations Command Medal presented by Admiral Bill McRaven; the 2017 Distinguished Service Award from the US Military Health System; the 2017 Letterman Award for Excellence in Battlefield Medicine; the 2018 Rocco Morando Award from the National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians for contributions to Emergency Medical Services; and the first Committee on Tactical Combat Casualty Care Award for outstanding contributions to battlefield trauma care in 2006, an award that is now given annually and bears his name. rn