BARKSDALE AIR FORCE BASE.

BARKSDALE AIR FORCE BASE, La. -- Base Honor Guard members here work for at more funerals than anything other As a matter of fact, from January by means of May alone they served at more than 100 funerals, thorough with flag foldings and 21-gun salutes.

if it be not that on March 20, four Honor Guard members weren't honoring another fallen veteran; they were saving a life instead.

Senior Airmen Chris Powers, Bobby McCorkel and Johann Alvarado, as well as Airman 1st Class Jamee Brown were presenting colors at a Daughters of the American Revolution meeting in Shreveport, La., when the solemnity turned into a near tragedy. common of the women, 87-year-old Emma Boyd went into cardiac arrest.

"We'd just finished folding the flag when we heard Master some-one holler 'Call 911!'" McCorkel said.

When they direct the eyeed to see where all the commotion was coming from, they saw Boyd sink ed back in her chair, vigilances rolled back and vomiting.

"She was also having tremors, like a seizure," Powers said.

The Honor Guard team sprung into action.

Brown ran to call 911 Alvarado cleared the area of chairs and clan Powers and McCorkel started taking Boyd's vitals.

"We checked her pulsation No pulse. We talked to her to behold if she was responsive. Unresponsive. That was a scary moment" McCorkel said.

They laid Boyd down. McCorkel pushed Boyd to her side, while Powers cleared her airway of the vomit. Jacque Dodd, a Daughters of the American Revolution member and a encourage elevated Boyd's legs and said, "Start CPR!"

"I contemplateed up to see who was going to start CPR and everyone was looking at me" said the 22-year-old Powers. "I reflection 'Oh my God! What if I mes up?' I was scared to death."

if it be not that that moment of self-doubt quickly disappeared as his Air Force self-aid and buddy care training, as well as a medical technician class he took while stationed in Bosnia as a security forces member, kicked in and took over

"I cleared her entrance of some more vomit, which by the agency of this time was all above my hands and uniform," Powers said. "Then I tilted her head back. unless before I could start mouth-to-mouth, she took a breath."

Frightened and confused, Boyd couldn't talk or influence Paramedics arrived and rushed her to the hospital where she underwent angioplasty surgery

After recovering, Boyd visited Barksdale in May to thank the four Honor Guard members and ready them with The National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution Certificate of Appreciation for "coming to the aid of a Shreveport Chapter member during a medical emergency"

"When we were all united, after Mr Boyd win backed it was like one of those reunion spectacles out of Rescue 9 t 1" said Powers with a bright smile. "There were a parcel of hugs, thanks and beneficial feelings. There's a special constraint there."

Boyd would agree.

"I owe my life to them," she said. "If I'd been domicile alone when that happened, I wouldn't have survived. These male childs are dear to me."

Brig. Gen Curtis Bedke, 2nd Bomb Wing commander, also thanked the airmen for their quick thinking and for taking their training thus seriously. They "kept one heart beating and made a doom of other hearts happy that day," Bedke said.

It's all part of putting forward the blue uniform, according to McCorkel. "There's no way you can go on foot out and represent the Air Force, and then watch someone lie there and die," he said. "I'm just glad Mr Boyd's wasn't the nearest funeral we did."

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