JOINT BASE PEARL HARBOR-HICKAM, Hawaii -- The Mental Health Team of the 624th Aeromedical Staging Squadron, Medical Operations Flight received the Statewide Impact Award from the Hawaii House of Representatives at the Hawaii State Capitol on March 7, 2025.
Representative Elijah Pierick commended Capt. Erik Steidley, Capt. Stephanie Cooney, Master Sgt. Tatiana Abasolo, and Tech. Sgt. Annette Lugo-Bello for their meritorious humanitarian services of mental health support in response to the 2023 Maui wildfires.
“A part of the fight is making sure that we’re ready to do that [provide mental health support],” said Cooney, 624th ASTS mental health nurse. “We are building our skills, making those connections, and teaching people what resources are out there.”
Together with organizations such as the Hawaii State Department of Health, State of Hawaii Department of Human Services, Kaiser Permanente, and Maui Wildfires Disaster Case Management Program, the 624th ASTS Mental Health Team conducted a situational analysis for the DHS and initiated their own support efforts. According to Cooney and Lugo-Bello, 624th ASTS mental health technician, the analysis gave community insight and directed the team to areas where they could best aid survivors.
“We knew that there is a lack of available mental health providers in Hawaii in general,” said Cooney. “And a lot of reluctancy from people to seek out mental health, especially after the fires.”
During their two weeks in Maui, the 624th ASTS Mental Health Team secured and distributed supplies across the island at four sites and hosted trainings throughout the community centered on mental health. At the Steven A. Cohen Military Family Clinic at Child & Family Service, members gave a child-focused intervention training to provide parents with different techniques on how to care for children with undue stress, mental disorders, and disabilities. At Kaiser Permanente, Abasolo gave a mental health resilience training session where she shared tactics such as stress meditation and stress outlet considerations. Lastly, an in-depth, all-day training on suicidal risk response was given covering suicidal tendency behavior identification and de-escalation methods.
“Suicide is prevalent in uniformed individuals, so that training is super important for us in our Air Force life and civilian life,” said Cooney. She emphasized that her team supports “Airmen to stay healthy and perform the mission they promised when they took that oath of office.”
The 624th ASTS Mental Health Team also gave on-site mental health help to survivors living in various shelter conditions. Some survivors were boarded at the Royal Lahaina Resort, while others lived in encampments atop gravel and rocks.
“It was a mix between people that were homeless prior and the people that were homeless because of the fires,” said Cooney. “So, it was just a shelter with everybody.”
“A lot of them were, unfortunately, people struggling with substance abuse and mental health issues, sometimes both,” said Lugo-Bello. “When I say issues, I don’t mean like depression necessarily, more like schizophrenia [and] bipolar.”
Lugo-Bello described her encounter at the Lahaina ruins as first seeing a wall with a mural of beautiful drawings and colors, but behind that wall, everything was ash gray. She and Cooney summarized their experience as humbling and personal.
“A lot of those people lost everything,” said Lugo-Bello. “I know [it was] not here on our island, but giving back to the community that’s not just military meant a lot to me.”
Air Force mental health nurses and service specialists are responsible for ensuring every Airman is mentally fit to carry out their missions. With the Brandon Act signed into law, service members can initiate their own referral request for a mental health evaluation and seek help for any reason, at any time, confidentially. Mental health support and resources are available to service members worldwide, such as Military OneSource, non-medical counseling, and 988 Veterans Crisis Line. For more information, visit the Military Health System Mental Health Hub online at www.health.mil/Military-Health-Topics/Mental-Health.