Twenty-five years after crawling 20 feet into the smoking wreckage of the World Trade Center to save a trapped police officer, Dr. John Chovanes now spends his days training active-duty soldiers inside the trauma bays of Cooper University Hospital in Camden, New Jersey. The surgeon has turned his own path from Ground Zero into a national military medical training platform, one that prepares Army doctors, nurses, and physician assistants for the battlefield before they ever deploy.
Chovanes was at Ground Zero during the rescue operation on September 11, 2001, according to CBS News. He and paramedic John Busching crawled into the rubble to reach Port Authority Police Officer John McLoughlin, who was trapped and suffering from crush syndrome. As detailed by the Journal of Emergency Medical Services, McLoughlin was extracted after 22 hours as the last survivor pulled alive from the debris.
“There was a guy trapped way down in there, and we took turns crawling down this hole,” Chovanes said, per the station's report. He has described the day plainly: “This was a massive attack on our country.”
From Ground Zero to the U.S. Army
The attack pushed Chovanes to enlist, joining the military after 9/11 as part of what CBS News describes as a broader surge of Americans who signed up in the aftermath. He went on to serve on a forward surgical team in Iraq and, per the same account, has said simply, “I just believe in helping people.”
His enlistment traces directly to a mentor he met at Ground Zero. Chovanes was mentored there by University of Pennsylvania trauma surgeon Dr. John P. Pryor, who was later killed in action in Iraq on Christmas Day 2008, according to Rowan Today. In January 2024, Chovanes received the Eastern Association for the Surgery of Trauma's John P. Pryor, MD Distinguished Service Award in Military Casualty Care, an honor named for the man who inspired his military career.
Chovanes has since completed six overseas tours, serving at Contingency Operating Base Speicher in Tikrit, Iraq in 2007, Forward Operating Base Salerno in Khowst, Afghanistan in 2010 and 2012, and Camp Manion in Iraq in 2016, according to the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine. He served as Deputy Commander of Clinical Services during his Afghanistan deployments. For his actions at Ground Zero, Chovanes was awarded the U.S. Army Soldier's Medal for Heroism, and he separately received the Army Commendation Medal for Meritorious Service after removing an unexploded rocket-propelled grenade from a wounded soldier in combat, according to Cooper University Health Care.
Camden's Trauma Bays Double as Battlefield Training
Chovanes went on to establish Cooper's Section of Military, Diplomatic, and Field Surgical Affairs, known as MILDAF, which provides trauma training for military members and has become a key national military medical training platform, per CBS News. He now works as a Cooper trauma surgeon, and he has said the hospital's trauma unit can sometimes feel like a battlefield.
That comparison isn't just rhetorical. Cooper operates the only designated Level I Adult Trauma Center in South Jersey, serving a population of 2.7 million people and handling roughly 5,000 trauma alerts and more than 28,000 surgical cases each year, according to Cooper University Health Care's own figures cited by the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine. The hospital's Level I trauma center sees thousands of patients. Military doctors, nurses, and physician assistants receive civilian immersion training there before they deploy.
Military teams rotate through Cooper's high-acuity resuscitation unit, and Cooper also has simulators for practicing military field operations, per CBS News.
A Federal Mandate Behind the Partnership
Cooper's relationship with the Department of Defense isn't recent. In January 2019, Cooper signed an agreement with the DOD to launch the nation's first Army Military-Civilian Trauma Team Training program, authorized under a 2017 Congressional mandate requiring military medical personnel to train in high-volume civilian Level I trauma centers, according to DVIDS. Congress passed that mandate to advance surgical readiness among military medical staff.
Cooper also expanded its military medical training in 2019, according to Cooper University Health Care. Active-duty personnel training in Camden work alongside veteran military surgeons, including Col. Kirby R. Gross, an Army trauma surgeon assigned to MILDAF who has completed 10 deployments totaling more than five years of combat service and helped write the American College of Surgeons' Military Trauma System manual.
The Army has continued expanding what it does at Cooper. In 2025, it placed physician assistants from the 4th Infantry Division into two-week civilian trauma immersions in Camden, per DVIDS. Military personnel training at Cooper's trauma center now get real-world trauma experience before deploying to combat zones, and Cooper's trauma training more broadly focuses on military readiness in the years since 9/11.
Cooper's trauma unit remains South Jersey's regional lifeline for civilian emergencies too. It's the same Level I center that serves civilian emergencies, underscoring how the same trauma bays that train soldiers for war also serve as the region's frontline for civilian tragedy.
