When the Artemis II capsule splashed down after a nearly 10-day mission to the moon, a paramedic from Maine was waiting in a Navy helicopter, ready to help recover its astronauts.

As Noah Tilton, a 26-year-old U.S. Navy hospital corpsman second class and search-and-rescue medical technician, prepared to greet mission specialist Christina Koch after she was hoisted up from the capsule’s front porch raft floating off the coast of California, he ran through worst-case scenarios.

Tilton was prepared for medical emergencies as the astronauts’ bodies readjusted to gravity. He had tested his blood pressure monitor and had his diagnostic tools handy. He was armed with a tourniquet and IV fluids.

Dive medical personnel, who were prepared for medical emergencies, made initial contact with the astronauts, and helped them to the front porch raft. The recovery team had a hyperbaric chamber ready to treat any decompression illness. An entire surgical team awaited the astronauts nearby.

Tilton knew he and his crew could have the astronauts to the surgeons in five minutes, if they needed to. They had practiced enough emergency scenarios.

“In my head, I’m like: ‘Oh my goodness, this is going to be insane. I’m going to have to really stretch my knowledge and stretch my abilities to make sure that these people make it,'” Tilton said.

At the least, the rescue team expected to deal with extreme nausea, after the astronauts’ inner ear fluid had been gravity-free for days.

“It was like slow-motion getting ready,” Tilton said. “I was super nervous, but felt really good. We all kind of got together and prayed before the mission.”

Tilton’s helicopter moved to pick up Koch. When they hoisted her into the aircraft, she was smiling and gave Tilton a high-five.

Tilton couldn’t believe it. After pulling Koch up without a hitch, the helicopter circled back for Artemis II pilot Victor Glover.

When Glover came up to the helicopter, smiling as wide as Koch, Tilton was flooded with relief. Landing on the flight deck of the recovery ship, the USS John P. Murtha, he couldn’t stop grinning.

“They were so stoked, and it was such a relief,” Tilton said. “Everyone in Medical was lining the halls because we’d already radioed ahead, ‘All green, everyone’s feeling good,’ … we walked in and (they) just erupted in applause.”

For Melanie Tilton, watching her son participate in the mission was a thrill and a relief.

“Particularly with active duty military, with a war going on in Iran right now, it’s very scary as a parent to not know where your child is working,” Melanie Tilton said. “It’s a scary thing as a parent of a child in the military.”

But watching her son assist with Artemis II, with friends and family at her side, was joyful.

As Noah Tilton helped Koch across the flight deck, and watched her take off walking, hovering nearby in case she got dizzy, Melanie Tilton was at home on the edge of her seat.

“We were watching the Artemis splashdown and having no idea whether we would catch a glimpse of him, and we didn’t know which helicopter he was in,” she said. “So when the helicopter landed; there’s something about the way your child moves and stands that you just recognize, so we’re standing up in the living room screaming, ‘That’s Noah! That’s Noah!'”

Quickly, Melanie Tilton started seeing her son’s picture everywhere. He was in one of the first images she saw in The Washington Post.

“The weight of it hits you that your child’s in all of these photos that are memorializing this incredibly historic and incredibly successful NASA mission,” she said. “There’s been a lot going on in the world over the last year or so, and this has been just an experience of overwhelming joy.”

She said her mother has been stopping people in the grocery store, saying, “My grandson rescues astronauts,” and showing them photos.

“This sounds corny,” Melanie Tilton said, “but we’re over the moon about this.”

Noah Tilton hopes his hometown is proud too.

Tilton grew up largely in southern Maine, in Gorham and Scarborough, but he went to high school in Winslow for his junior year and in Waterville for his senior year, graduating from Waterville High School in 2018. Looking back, Tilton said Waterville is where he made some of his closest friends, and he hopes to move back to the area when he’s finished his time in the Navy.

When his mom and grandmother were calling him, telling him they could see him on CNN, Tilton said he was still waiting for a call from his high school guidance counselor. If Waterville High School put his picture up, he said he’d lose his mind.

“Something about being recognized by a small town means so much more,” Tilton said.

Tilton said he always knew he wanted to be in the military. His mother said that it came as no surprise when, craving community after COVID-19 disrupted her son’s sophomore year of college, he decided to join the Navy.

Still, Tilton has been shocked by the opportunities he’s had as a Navy medic. He’s been on multiple helicopter squadrons, he’s taken on instructor roles, teaching medical training, and he was thrilled when he was selected for the Artemis II mission.

“I hope I get to be around for Artemis III,” Tilton said.

Melanie Tilton said her son sometimes gave her a run for her money when he was growing up. But, as she told a friend with two younger boys, he’s now absolved of whatever he put her through. Seeing him on the Artemis mission brought her whole family together.