JOINT BASE PEARL HARBOR-HICKAM, Hawaii -- Four Headquarters Pacific Air Forces NCOs were among eight Airmen honored in a Dec. 18 ceremony in Honolulu for their heroic efforts in the aftermath of a U.S. Marine Corps MV-22 Osprey mishap at Marines Corps Training Area at Bellows Air Force Station, Hawaii.
Master Sgts. Juan Guzman, Anthony Gauna and Michael Ledford, who work together in PACAF’s logistics directorate, were attending a birthday party for the son of co-worker Senior Master Sgt. Sam Sharpe at Bellows May 17 when they were informed by a station employee of the nearby mishap.
“We came around the connex, we all started looking down, and we saw the black smoke coming up and the dust,” Gauna said. “For me, and I’m sure for all of us, we stood there in a state of shock at first, as we took in what we were seeing.”
Once the initial shock wore off, Sharpe said he, and fellow munitions program managers, Guzman and Gauna, jumped in his truck to head to the scene, leaving Ledford behind in their haste.
“I don’t think Guzman, Gauna or I said anything to anybody; we just migrated to my truck, got in and went,” Sharpe said. “It’s hard to explain. You always hear it’s just automatic, and for us, it is just what we would naturally do.”
Once on the scene, the three noticed a piece of the vertical stabilizer had made a 3-foot opening in the fence, which they immediately jumped through. Being the first to arrive on scene, the NCOs started removing Marines from the aircraft and performing self-aid and buddy care.
“Self-aid and buddy care does help,” Sharpe said. “In a situation like that, it’s not a natural act, but at that point my body was on auto pilot.”
Meanwhile, Ledford, a command armament manager, caught up with his wingmen by running to the site. He jumped the fence closest to the area where people were being pulled out. While running, Ledford said he recalled a story he had been told by a pararecueman in basic training about a helicopter crash that involved shrapnel and blades everywhere.
“That’s what I was thinking about on my way there, and that’s what I thought the scene would be,” he continued. “I didn’t see what I expected, because all the injuries were mostly internal.”
While they waited for emergency responders, the four Airmen continued to care for the four Marines who were the most critically injured, as the aircraft kept getting hotter and causing explosions.
“It was literally minutes after we pulled [one of the Marines] out that, maybe, the fuel tank cooked right off by where we were standing. It was like, ‘Oh crap, that could have got us,’” Sharpe recalled.
The common thought among the four was how chaotic everything was.
“I didn’t know what to expect; it was pure chaos -- it was people running around, people screaming and yelling; you saw blood,” Gauna said. “The area was getting smoky; it was getting hot. The more the plane burned, the more you could smell it. Picture a movie scene, and there you go, that’s what it was like. It was chaos; it was smoky; it was hot.”
All four Airmen said SABC was crucial to their response.
“I think a lot of people might blow off SABC, but it actually works,” Guzman said. “It just came back [to us.] When we were working on [one of the Marines], we had to insert a nasal airway. When I was working [on another Marine], we had to attach an AED (automated external defibrillator) and perform CPR.”
Guzman, Gauna, Sharpe and Ledford, along with lifeguards, off-duty nurses and security forces members assigned to Bellows who began arriving, also treated other Marines who had been on board the Osprey and suffered minor injuries.
“There was an element of shock that set in for the majority of the Marines who were on that aircraft,” Sharpe said. “The majority of them were distraught, and it did take some time for the second Osprey to land and come over to provide assistance.”
All four agreed that while nothing could prepare them for the scene, that didn’t stop them from providing as much help as they could, even if it had them second guessing themselves.
“You can take all the training you want, but once it happens, you’re not prepared,” Gauna said. “After everything was done, I beat myself up thinking, ‘I could have done this better. Why did I do that? That was dumb of me; I should have done this instead.’ No matter what, I learned you can never really be prepared for something like that.”
What did the four Airmen do after it was all done? Return to their families and the birthday party they left abruptly.
During the Dec.18 ceremony, the Airmen were recognized by Marine Lt. Gen. John A. Toolan, commander of U.S. Marine Corps Forces, Pacific, alongside the other four Airmen who responded -- Lt. Col. Mike Blake, Staff Sgt. Richard Wright and Senior Airmen Reginal Flye and Marcus Griffin. The eight were among the 113 civilian and military first responders who responded to the mishap.
“That’s one thing you don’t realize. People consider it a heroic act; for us, it’s just something we did,” Sharpe said. “After it was over, my kids were like, ‘Dad, you’re a hero.’ It’s something we didn’t think [about]. You’re just going to help somebody. To be honest, it was hot, and there were flames, but I wasn’t thinking about the dangers. I was just thinking, ‘Get these guys out, so they can live to see another day.’”