JOINT BASE ANDREWS, Md. –
“You better not die; the kids would be so mad.”
It’s a surreal scene. The smell of a small, old bathroom, the endless noise of security forces over the radio. A man, blue in the face, face down on the floor in a dire medical situation. And a concerned wife, watching her worst nightmare play out before her eyes.
Jovan Berry had been planning on doing administrative tasks and getting some paperwork done on a day he expected to be quiet and boring. However, as a U.S. Air Force Staff Sergeant and a Security Forces base defense operations controller, he knows he needs to be ready for anything, anytime. “Slow is smooth, smooth is fast,” - a saying drilled into Airmen over and over in basic training, technical school and consistently throughout their careers.
POLICE ONE, WE NEED YOU EN ROUTE TO THE VCC
All Berry had to go off of was a brief description: someone was unconscious in the bathroom.
“We’ve had medical responses plenty of times, but this one sounded a little more immediate,” he said.
Berry rushed into the Visitor Control Center at Joint Base Andrews where he was met by other security forces personnel, given gloves and shown to the scene. In the bathroom lay an elderly man whose face was already blue and purple, indicating a severe lack of oxygen.
"I immediately thought, how do I save this man,” Berry said, having never encountered a situation like the one before him, he had to rely on his training. "You really just fall back on what were taught in our CPR training,” Berry said. “If I wasn’t properly equipped with the training that I had, I would have been like ‘what do I do now?’”
That’s exactly what Berry did: he used the techniques he learned in training. He tilted the gentleman’s head and lifted his chin to open his airway but there was no breath.
Berry immediately started the first round of chest compressions. Nothing.
It was time to start the next steps: tilt the head, lift the chin, pinch the nose shut, open the mouth. That’s when he noticed the gentleman’s dentures were deformed in his mouth. He quickly removed the deformed dentures and began performing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
The chest started to rise and the purple color in the gentleman’s face diminished slightly.
Berry returned to performing chest compressions until medical personnel arrived on scene. Time slowed down, the music on the radio droned on and on. What felt like an eternity to Berry, was in reality only about four or five minutes.
When they arrived on scene, medical personnel were able to stabilize the patient. A few days later Berry checked in with medical staff, who told him the patient was recovering.
Berry never expected to find himself in an emergency situation on a seemingly uneventful Wednesday in May 2026. Because of his training, resiliency and life experience, he was able to handle the situation calmly. On that same Wednesday in May, Berry was able to save a man’s life.
“I grew up homeless, we were bouncing around house to house all throughout school,” Berry said, reminiscing on his childhood. “I don’t think younger me would even imagine me being where I am right now.”
Lt. Col. Tim Marriner, 316th Security Forces Squadron commander, heaped praise on Berry for his actions, “Staff Sgt. Berry embodied something we preach daily – people do not rise to the occasion; they rise to their lowest level of preparation,” he said. “Because he took his training seriously, he was able to save a life, and we could not be prouder of his actions.”