Air Force Tech. Sgts. Scott Hartnett, Nathan Blizzard, Kylie Eberle and Jeremy Guancia, along with Master Sgt. Clare Gill, pose on Ikei Island, Okinawa, March 22, 2026. (U.S. Air Force)
Five U.S. airmen attending a leadership course at Kadena Air Base received Air Force Achievement Medals after aiding an injured Japanese man on a beach off central Okinawa.
The airmen were sightseeing on Ikei Island on March 22 when they encountered a 79-year-old man who had fallen, struck his head and lost consciousness, according to the service members and locals officials.
The group — Tech. Sgts. Scott Hartnett, Nathan Blizzard, Kylie Eberle and Jeremy Guancia, along with Master Sgt. Clare Gill — were on Okinawa for the five-week Noncommissioned Officer Academy.
They later received achievement medals and coins from Senior Master Sgt. Colton Fink, acting commandant of the academy.
Hartnett said his Air Force tactical combat casualty care training helped him react quickly.
“I knew that I had that training, so I knew that I would be the responsible one,” he told Stars and Stripes by phone on May 11.
Hartnett, a heavy aircraft integrated avionics craftsman for the 730th Air Mobility Squadron at Yokota Air Base in western Tokyo, said the group had just arrived at Ikei Beach around noon when he heard what sounded like a crack against concrete.
Turning around, he saw the man unconscious and bleeding heavily from the head.
Blizzard, an aircraft structural maintenance section chief with the 36th Maintenance Squadron at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, saw blood was pooling around the man’s head.
“It was actively growing, which was very scary,” he said by phone on May 14.
While Hartnett retrieved a first aid kid, Blizzard used his shirt to help stop the bleeding.
Gill, a section chief for Yokota’s 374th Medical Support Squadron, and Blizzard stabilized the man’s neck while Eberle, a unit deployment manager with the 51st Medical Support Squadron at Osan Air Base, South Korea, elevated his legs as he drifted in and out of consciousness.
Guancia, of the 35th Surgical Operations Squadron at Misawa Air Base in northern Japan, used a phone translator and hand gestures to ask a nearby woman to contact emergency services.
The man was taken to a central Okinawa hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, an Uruma city fire department spokesman said by phone on May 19. Some Japanese government officials must speak to the press only on condition of anonymity.
Eberle said the incident reinforced the value of years of emergency response training.
“All the training I’ve done in my 13 years in the Air Force came into play,” she said by phone May 19. “[It’s] why we practice and we do things, so when it’s an emergency, it’s not your first time experiencing something.”
Stars and Stripes reporter Keishi Koja contributed to this report.
