Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey Brainstuff, Lauren Vogelbaum.
Speaker 1: Here within the US Coast Guard, there's a contingent called
Speaker 1: the Aviation Survival Technicians or ASTs, though they're more commonly
Speaker 1: known as rescue swimmers, trained to jump from helicopters to
Speaker 1: save lives in the water and from other extremely precarious situations.
Speaker 1: Before the article this episode is based on How Stuff Works.
Speaker 1: Spoke with Joseph butch Fly, a retired Master Chief Petty officer.
Speaker 1: He recalled one of his early rescues in which he
Speaker 1: jumped out of a helicopter into the water some one
Speaker 1: hundred miles or one hundred and fifty kilometers off North
Speaker 1: Carolina shore to help two men whose sailboat had capsized
Speaker 1: in a squall. When it came time to help them
Speaker 1: get into the basket lift that the copter had lowered,
Speaker 1: the second man became alarmed by the copter's rotor. Wash
Speaker 1: Fly said, he freaked out a bit. I had to
Speaker 1: do a break on him, use pressure points sort of
Speaker 1: like wrestling moves to get him to calm down. If
Speaker 1: he gets away from me, it's easy to lose contact.
Speaker 1: Unlike a lifeguard at a pool. Rescue swimmers can't let
Speaker 1: go of someone no matter what. ASTs are key members
Speaker 1: of helicopter crews trained to rescue people from everything from
Speaker 1: crashing surf and ocean waves to cliff faces and ice
Speaker 1: floes to hurricane flooded homes. Fly said, you have to
Speaker 1: be an element of calm in a world of chaos.
Speaker 1: It's grueling work, even for specialists who are highly trained
Speaker 1: and in excellent physical condition, involving the constant threat of
Speaker 1: serious injury and even death. Amazingly, Fly says the US
Speaker 1: Coast Guard has yet to suffer a fatality in the water,
Speaker 1: but swimmers have dealt with broken bones, damaged spines, and
Speaker 1: other serious injuries. He said, if you're doing a high
Speaker 1: hoist and they're putting you down into a vessel that's
Speaker 1: rocking back and forth, you can get slammed into the side.
Speaker 1: We had a guy dropped down into a burning diesel
Speaker 1: slick and he got burns in his throat from inhaling it.
Speaker 1: A Fly called another colleague who narrowly escaped being trapped
Speaker 1: in a cave and had to exert himself so strenuously
Speaker 1: that he pushed his core body temperature up to one
Speaker 1: hundred and four degrees fahrenheit. That's forty celsius. The Coastguard's
Speaker 1: rescue swimmer program was created after the nineteen eighty three
Speaker 1: Marine Electric tragedy, in which a US Coast Guard helicopter
Speaker 1: team attempted to rescue thirty four crew members of the
Speaker 1: ship the Marine Electric, that capsized during a winter storm
Speaker 1: off the coast of Virginia. By the time the team
Speaker 1: had arrived on the scene, most of the people in
Speaker 1: the water had developed hypothermia and were unable to climb
Speaker 1: into the aircraft's rescue basket. In the end, only three
Speaker 1: of the ship's crew of thirty four were saved. After
Speaker 1: an investigation of the disaster, Congress directed the Coastguard to
Speaker 1: train selected members of the service to go into the
Speaker 1: water to perform rescues. A Fly, one of the Coast
Speaker 1: Guard's initial group of rescue swimmers, later ran rescue swimmer
Speaker 1: training at the Services Facility in Elizabeth City, North Carolina,
Speaker 1: and eventually became manager of the National Rescue Swimming Program
Speaker 1: before retiring in two thousand and seven. He actually portrayed
Speaker 1: himself in the two thousand and six action thriller The Guardian,
Speaker 1: a film about Coast Guard Rescue Swimmers, starring Kevin Costner
Speaker 1: and Ashton Kusher. In addition to swimming, AST's duties include
Speaker 1: inspecting and maintaining emergency equipment, and training and testing others
Speaker 1: and survival skills, such as how to get out of
Speaker 1: a sinking aircraft. Fly, who was trained by the US
Speaker 1: Navy because the Coast Guard hadn't yet started its own school,
Speaker 1: says that the Coast Guard rescue swimmers function is different
Speaker 1: from their Navy counterparts, whose job is primarily to rescue
Speaker 1: well trained pilots have crashed in the water during combat.
Speaker 1: The Coast Guard isn't generally facing combat, but there are
Speaker 1: other challenges in coming to the assistance of civilians. Fly
Speaker 1: said they deploy in some very hairy situations. I would
Speaker 1: get lowered down to a fishing boat with mom, pops,
Speaker 1: some kids, and the dog. We have to deal with
Speaker 1: untrained people. That means that, in addition to being a
Speaker 1: highly conditioned athlete and a skilled swimmer, a rescue swimmer
Speaker 1: also has to be part psychologist and understand how to
Speaker 1: deal with someone paralyzed by panic in an unfamiliar and
Speaker 1: frightening situation. From the time that they jump from the
Speaker 1: helicopter into the water, ideally from a height of ten
Speaker 1: to fifteen feet that's three to four and a half meters.
Speaker 1: A rescue swimmers also have to work against the clock
Speaker 1: because the aircraft only has a limited amount of fuel
Speaker 1: and has to keep enough in the tank to get
Speaker 1: back to land. A rescue swimmers go into the water
Speaker 1: clad in wetsuits with other layers of clothing underneath to
Speaker 1: protect them against cold water. They're also outfitted with a
Speaker 1: protective helmet, a mask and snorkel, a safety harness, and
Speaker 1: an array of gear that includes a knife, strobe light
Speaker 1: to make them visible to aircraft, and the radio that
Speaker 1: enables them to communicate with the helicopter's pilot if there's
Speaker 1: a need to change the game plan for a rescue.
Speaker 1: One of the most important parts of their gear are
Speaker 1: the big black foot fins that enable them to swim
Speaker 1: more powerfully. They are also equipped with arduous training in
Speaker 1: which they're subjected to simulated storms, complete with artificially generated
Speaker 1: waves and lightning and water sprayjets to simulate the chaotic
Speaker 1: environment underneath a hovering copter flyve said. The training also
Speaker 1: measures how that person reacts under stress. They'll introduce scenarios
Speaker 1: when a swimmer jumps out of a helicopter and has
Speaker 1: one survivor, then two survivors, then three. But despite all
Speaker 1: the training, rescue swimmers sometimes have to deal with unpredictable risks.
Speaker 1: Flyth were called a rescue swimmer in Alaska, for example,
Speaker 1: who arrived at the scene of an aircraft crash and
Speaker 1: was confronted by a bear looking for a scuffle and
Speaker 1: had to chase it off with the flare. The people
Speaker 1: who take on such a risky, stressful job have a
Speaker 1: variety of motivations. For some, it's a desire to have
Speaker 1: a challenging career, while others may be driven by patriotism
Speaker 1: or the altruistic satisfaction of helping save others. A fly said,
Speaker 1: when you're in the aircraft afterward and the people you've
Speaker 1: rescued are looking at you, you can see the gratitude
Speaker 1: in their eyes. Today's episode is based on the article
Speaker 1: host Guard rescue swimmers risk all to save lives and
Speaker 1: HowStuffWorks dot Com, written by Patrick J. Higer. Brain Stuff
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