Emergency Rescue! | Coast Guard Alaska | Full Episode

[Music] through murky fog and low visibility a coast guard chopper attempts to reach a man suffering from severe chest pain i could barely see the water let's take a real nice sneezing this weather's bad we're in the thick of it like pea soup fog like like i've never seen in the dense forest a crew struggles to locate a downed plane and it's seven passengers anytime you hear seven people then you start thinking for a mass casualty and you know people are down there and they're in distress and seconds count and when the call goes out for persons in the water rescuers gear up for a hoist this really shows what the coast guard does is we don't give up on people no matter what the circumstances the vast alaskan wilderness a place where beauty is cloaked by danger here every day the highly trained men and women of the u.s coast guard risk their lives to save others america's deadliest waters are protected by coast guard alaska [Music] it's a male 60 year old male yep thank you all right bye lieutenant robert hornick i'm the operation duty officer here at air station kodiak this morning at 3 30 received a phone call 60 year old male had a heart attack at old harbor about 40 miles south of the air station here the weather we're looking at about one quarter to one half mile visibility here in kodiak and route the weather's about 100 foot ceilings all right guys we're going to old harbor i'm expecting the weather there to be poor as well so we're just going to follow this route and get there safely lieutenant commander tim williams age 60 pilot air station kodiak the weather's poor at this point uh definitely not the type of weather we'd go train in but the survivor's condition and his need to get to further medical care definitely warranted us to fly into that poor weather to go get them this weather's bad we're assessing the visibility in the ceilings uh we could judge based on the uh the painted lines on the runway that it was right at one quarter of a mile uh which is just enough to get get going for a star case i barely see the water i might want to keep it a little bit lower than that roger is gonna climb up to 150 i'll come down silver visual let's take a real nice music this gentleman needed to be medevaced and brought to higher level care due to a heart attack there's always an urgency that's an upped urgency to get going even faster and that's you know juxtaposed against this quarter mile of visibility so there's an element of hurry but not rush so john you hear the same thing i did the patients actually have a cpr no that's not true unless that changed within the last five minutes ast ii john holberg you got the the golden hour as they they say in emergency medicine so you're thinking about time on the way out we're preparing the plane and uh getting everything ready to go we will be landing at old harbor uh in one minute we are on final right now and there's door speed on door i was hoping it may get a little bit thinner out here but man it's not as thick it was patchy fog and as the sun was coming up the sun was kind of burning off the fog here and there so we thought it was going to be better this might dust up on you passing the door it's real small though when you have a patient with heart problems you're just constantly thinking what can i do to get this done as fast as possible we went out we got the patient and got all the info that i could went back to the plane all right i got a tap on the shoulder and it turns out one of the one of one of his sons asked if he could go with sir is it possible for the sun to come with uh tonight's space park sir maybe he can find space for him yeah yeah once we got everyone loaded on board and uh everyone was situated and strapped down we took off immediately and uh started heading back to kodiak how's he doing a lot of testimony i just wanted to get a hold of a flight surgeon and ask if you want to mind i give another dose of nitroglycerin okay i'll uh i'll cut that constantly right now patient was alert and verbal while we're in route though we noticed his blood pressure go up and his pain level wasn't improving he had nitroglycerin and it was prescribed to him for just that anytime he gets some kind of heart pain he's supposed to take a dose of it because he'd already self-administered two doses i had the pilots call and uh talked to the flight surgeon to make sure i could help assist the patient in taking a third dose of nitro light surgeon said that's fine give him a third shot okay right that's uh approved for the flight surgeon for our third shot also uh what's the current uh weather conditions here at the field it could be better at the tap that came out it's about a half hour ago calling a half mile in the fog if that's helpful for about three or four minutes all right back in the patchy fog the transit from old harbor to kodiak was even worse than than the transit from kodiak to old harbor but the whole worst part of the the whole ordeal was i'd say the last mile and a half we're in the thick of it like pea soup fog like i've never seen perfect [Music] had to continually come in and get lower and slower uh it's eventually we're about a mile out from the airport we had to pull the aircraft into a hover over the water and just crawl our way in both pilots were working together trying to get in there backing one another up down on the instrument you we trained for this exact scenario thank goodness because it is uncomfortable you want to get there as fast as possible but you have to get there all right guys pick it up we're on deck at this time requesting secure our radio guard over well that was downright visible that was horrible good job though i've got lights from an ambulance over at the by the fuel trucks where they normally fit good eye [Music] this condition improved uh before we landed and uh and then once we got back back on deck here we were able to pass them off to an ambulance to take them safely over to the hospital and clear them in circles [Music] after the survivors hand off to ems and we shut the aircraft down we started coming off that adrenaline that we usually run on in the middle of the night like that and yeah we were all pretty tired we had a very thorough debrief a lot happened during the flight [Music] a case like that is really rewarding it's like putting a puzzle together with having a time crunch added to it when you can get everything accomplished within that time frame that you're hoping for then you have a lot to be happy for absolutely my name is emil christensen born and raised in old harbor alaska i was getting ready to go commercial fishing and about 11 o'clock in the evening i got kind of sick and i didn't know what it was when i got sick my two sons came on board they thought i was having a heart attack which i thought i was myself it's 11 o'clock at night and it's foggy out and the only help we have is the us coast guard if coast guard wasn't there i might not be here today i've seen a lot of rescues they've done i've seen the weather they've come in and you got to appreciate them i've watched them rescue my own son about 25 years ago when he was sick i don't know how i could thank him from the bottom of my heart i just like to thank you very much [Music] the aircraft was wedged in between two trees with both wings ripped off about eight feet off the ground i knew it was going to take all my physical and mental abilities to make it through this staircase that turbulence messed everything up 737 crashed on the right side of the runway 3-6 unknown people on board unknown pillow on board again i just want to say i appreciate everybody doing this for us it is an exercise we got to do every three years really try to make it realistic if you could please i appreciate that we're trying to just make sure our plan that we have in place will work so again thank you very much my name is eli bell i'm an ast at the air station kodiak we're at the fire department on base and uh doing mass casualty drill airplane crash for the fire department and the a couple of the local area emergency responders your plane was coming in this way and it veered off and crashed right here hi i'm jeff falcom i'm the fire chief for the coast guard fire department here in kodiak alaska for the drill we normally set up try to make it as realistic as possible for the responders so that they're responding to actual fire and actual patients to deal with um so we simulate that we had 15 patients with some victims that were pretended to be fatalities for a plane crash we use buses pretend like there's fuselage so that they can extricate the patients out of there they're actually going to start using heavy equipment to bust open this bus and get you out of there okay and it's going to be terrifying they should be calming you reassuring you they should be doing all that kind of stuff okay [Music] and help me don't worry about me go in there and help them go up to the engine here they're gonna help you out today i volunteered to be a victim being an emt it's a good opposite view of what to expect and maybe do get a little bit more information of how to deal with something like that somewhat experience on that in that level of training parking yes i got somebody coming out the back okay okay triage and red we set up a triage area we try not to send all the patients at once we try to figure out the most serious and get them going and then we distribute the rest of the patients that aren't as severely injured to different clinics so we don't overwhelm one agency okay yeah go ahead and start an iv honor one two three all right do you feel any of that [Music] today's drill went exceptionally well we basically transported i believe 17 patients effectively to the hospital within an hour and that's also putting the fire out and extricating them out of the aircraft that's just phenomenal we just got information of a possible downed aircraft in the vicinity of petersburg all we have right now is a position from the locating beacon that the aircraft has we also know that there are seven people on board our aircraft is equipped with receivers that can pick up the 406 beacon so on this case we're going to actively be monitoring those frequencies to make sure that we can pick up that transponder and it'll get us right on the spot alright guys so let's assume this is an actual plane now there's people there if everybody's fine we can take them to petersburg if somebody needs medical attention we're probably going to take a picture is there anything uh we should be thinking about their days yes triaging how much anytime you hear seven people then you start thinking for a mass casualty extra medical gear extra litters and backboards downed aircraft you start thinking about wreckage and fire hazards and maybe some tools to be able to cut through some of that wreckage are we picking anything up on 406 yes sir i'm going to start my defense i've got the area inside the head [Music] as we flew across frederick sound i could see the weather system in the valley essentially the whole east side of the sound was consumed in fog this was kind of disconcerting because uh you know we're going to have to go in there to start looking so problem is as we cross the shoreline the ceiling started to drop we essentially came into about a 200 foot hover which put us about 20 feet over the trees and we slowly incrementally crept up the valley kind of a critical maneuver in the aircraft not a great flight regime to be in uh but it was we needed to get to that position to uh to locate the beacon and hopefully the crash site now being in the door flying around the mountains like this all right we're gonna creep through the air real quick we're looking for broken trees anything that wouldn't be telltale sign over still we have been on scene about 40 minutes before we can get our first clean pass through the valley and uh you know it's it's very disheartening to know that you have a position you can't fly to it because of weather you know that there's people out there that need your help but we also have to worry about the safety of the aircraft and the air crew because if we end up in the trees we can't help anybody so we didn't we needed to make smart decisions get in there safely to be able to affect the rescue we're pretty much over the spot we're right there yeah the 406 is over here the first step is obviously finding the crash which sometimes can be the most difficult due to the the weather here the fog was so thick we were nearly 500 feet from their position and we couldn't even see the mountain all we could see was fog it's frustrating the woods is really thick and the weather's not cooperating and you know people are down there and they're in distress and seconds count battlefield a person down here we launched on a downed aircraft with seven people on board once we saw him we started talking about hoisting right away it was gonna be a max height hoist and the terrain was very rugged lots of trees it was on a mountainside it was going to be a difficult hoist for sure all right dave let's get you ready rochester it's hard to tell what that slopes doing dave it's pretty steep mr said that he spotted someone it's a huge lift off us knowing that we found him they were there and we can now do our job mr erickson decided that we want to do a harness deployment of the russian swimmers and land the biggest problem with that was that our hoisting area was maybe about i'd say five feet by five feet and we're doing a hoist from around 200 feet dave you feel good if we put [Music] right to the right of it there's something on the ground when we decided to hoist we didn't have a visual of the actual plane crash we just had one survivor on the ground and so the plan was to lower me down with the emt kit and make contact with the survivor and then i was going to radio back the situation to the helicopter from there's coming over and outside as i was getting lower down the sheer height of the hoist was uh kind of in the back of my mind and i knew i'd be getting lower down through some trees but i have full confidence in new kirk we work together a lot i was just ready to get down there and help him out as soon as possible don't come down anyway we're about 10 feet from the tree below us yeah roger can you help me right sir [Music] once i got on the ground it looked completely different from the air it was much more treacherous than i had saw there was a lot of debris big down trees and it was a lot steeper and muddier than than we had anticipated i knew it was going to take all my physical and mental abilities to make it through the staircase you're clear above it don't defend at all i made contact with uh with this gentleman it is [Music] and roger that once you get to the crash site give us a update on who is the ambulance or who's not there was one person with a back injury and a possible broken leg another person with a possible broken back another person with a broken wrist and three other people all had cuts and bruises and were in some pain they had been there for over five hours the aircraft was wedged in between two trees with both wings ripped off about eight feet off the ground the burning smell is what what really got to me and and what made the situation even more dire okay i have one litter now let's get the other one right off the bat i assembled one of the litters and i hoisted that litter down as quickly as i could came back into the cabin i reconfigured the cabin again assembled a second litter and sent that litter down god it was a bad decision to do my shoulder workshop yesterday they hoisted down the litter to me for the first survivor which was the female with the back injury and the broken leg had to explain to her that it was going to be very painful for me to pick her up and put her in this litter she was really brave and i picked her up and got her strapped up in the litter there was debris flying everywhere from the trees and getting thrown around from the ground i felt bad for her because she was getting debris thrown on her so was i but her best chance of survival was was rapid extraction coming inside the cabin [Music] really quickly so what we came up with was that we were going to litter the broken leg patient and then basket the broken arm patient get those folks back to petersburg get them to the ambulance while dave packaged up the back injury we formulated that plan and then we'd go back to petersburg and come back and pick up the remaining survivors and and dave bring the basket up to the cabinet oh man this is gonna be the hard part we got on scene there's down aircraft in the vicinity of petersburg with uh seven people on board the aircraft crashed in some pretty rough terrain the fact that there were six survivors was amazing but we did have a daunting task ahead of us we had to figure out how we were going to extract these six people the flight mac mark newkirk he was hustling he was the one that was dragging the litters in repositioning people halfway out right now right here okay second survivor broken wrist he was the son of the lady i hoisted in the litter i had to crawl outside the door a little bit so he couldn't fall out of the aircraft and then pick him up because he had a broken wrist and he couldn't lift his weight and move him over to the seat we talked to dave at that point and said hey we're going to leave you here and so you can package your second survivor and we're going to take them back to petersburg petersburg was probably about an eight minute transit from the crash site it was ideal for a rescue operation like this where you need to make multiple trips we were able to get on deck and there was ems personnel already pre-staged and waiting we were able to offload the two patients relatively quickly to get back out on scene all right you got enough room back there for four more fathers and dave i really hope so sir all right good copy we're just arriving on scene now so uh it'll be a bare hook recovery of the basket and we can do it all as one evolution okay that's the brief there's no questions that's pretty complete i did two basketballs two survivors that went fine and then on the third basket hoist when i had the basket about 20 feet off the deck we caught a burple a little bit of turbulence and it moves the aircraft just slightly about three or four feet yeah i'm starting to get a little bit of an oscillation at the basket so i'm trying to stop the swing so we just hit that tree basket just hit the trees passing down the streets going up swinging really bad sir that turbulence messed everything up and that's coming up he's doing a really good job just sitting there though i had to use both hands to control the cable to get it to stop swinging and the guy in the basket uh actually hit the trees twice and i was able to get him up in the cabin this guy's got a puppy here bring him back to the category nice job dude first three baskets went well now mark had to do the daunting task of making enough room in the cabin with three survivors already in there to get the seven foot litter in the back of the helicopter and better clear the decks easy right sir very easy right man holes i don't know how this kid has a smile on his face but he does this was going to take me a little while to bring inside through he's got a back injury so we got the last litter in the cabin and i sent down the bear hook to pick up dave and he hooked up got him up to the cabin and he's uh turned facing me he's just covered with mud he's got mud all over his face all over his dry suit he's coming inside the cabin uh is closing we are ready for flight how's it going buddy good to go a little wet but uh it's all good once i make it in the helicopter i immediately go into reassessing the patients they were all shivering uncontrollably they're all soaking wet and so hypothermia was a major concern breaking out blankets and keeping their spirits up once we landed and we did the patient transfer to the local ems it was a huge feeling of relief it was a great feeling to be able to go and help those people i had given everything i had [Music] missions like these they're in extreme circumstance but the individuals in the coast guard are of highest quality makes me really proud to to be a member here this particular case just goes to show that anytime the alarm goes off you never know what's going to happen [Music] aside from the one man who died you know we were able to locate the survivors provide medical care and extract them out within probably less than six hours from their crash which here in southeast alaska is nothing short of a miracle there are moments and events and people that god uses as powerful signs of hope my name is the reverend frank allen i'm an episcopal priest or minister some of you know that the allen family went on a once-in-a-lifetime vacation in june we booked a cruise to tour part of alaska we had casually signed up for a float plane excursion 10 minutes into the flight to the glacier the plane took a hard turn left and stalled and we crashed into a pair of gigantic trees and then dropped 20 feet straight down when we crashed the weather had been changing get a little iffy it was dark in the forest it was wet yeah we felt very much alone my intent was to get my family out of the plane and get them situated as quickly as possible about three hours into the crash you're hoping that someone is going to save you but then when you hear the sound and you can see the helicopter then you have this sense that we're going to get out of this and that was a great feeling it was a tremendous feeling to know that that there was an organization that was taking care of people who you know just by happenstance or lost in the wilderness after a plane crash i have a regret that i didn't stop and shake everyone's hand i don't know if i'll ever see these men again or be able to thank them for saving my family and saving me from what you know could have been death it's a great gift it's all i thought of [Music] all right we got the bear target and the deer target start off at 25 yards i'll shoot a couple arrows and let you shoot a couple my name is david white i'm a rescue swimmer at air station sitka and we're at the r2 range i'm gonna practice uh shoot some arrows three fingers one on top two on bottom you kind of [ __ ] it to the side so the arrow doesn't fall out okay my favorite pilot in the world mr extend is here and i'm gonna show them the basics on uh primitive archery [Music] like that just like that i've been shooting traditional archery my whole life my main goal here in alaska is to take down a brown bear with my long bow how close do you plan to get to the bear 25 yards from the bear that's how close you're gonna get yep i have to otherwise might not be enough dave white is certified crazy taking down a brown bear essentially a grizzly bear he's gonna have to sneak up on the bear and not spook it which is gonna be a feat in itself but if anybody can do it it's gonna be dave white instead of just standing still in one area i like to shoot from all different locations from kneeling and standing and around trees and stuff just to make it a little more realistic [Music] that'll do it four kills one got shot what kill zone are you going to be aiming for right by by the shoulder right in here the big circle right there yep probably a dead giveaway [Music] man for his first time out shooting the traditional bows he's doing really good stare right at the bull's-eye oh hey yes my shoulder i like the traditional bow just because it's more of a challenge takes more skill out of respect for the animal you know i want to get up close and personal and uh make it a challenging hunt i'll just back you up with the rifle all right because obviously i'm not too good of a shot yeah i think that one just would have made him mad you want to see some robin hood tricks yeah she's better than one [Music] it's like a shotgun there you go shooting a longbow is really neat because you're going back in history i mean this is it's before technology before the technology that we used in our compound bows and our rifles so it's really getting back to the roots of of hunting killing a brown bear with a long bow is like the ultimate hunting adventure you know this is this is wood and string there's no room for error you're crazy [Music] the coast guard has received a report of a possible person in the water that other guy's out there we're not gonna stop until we they determined that he did not live or until we find him [Music] in the water in the vicinity of home shore so this is the back story that spectre gave me before we got launched the fishing vessel swift called told him that he's having a problem with the crew mover and this guy is currently in the water i'm commander neal cummings the engineer officer at air station sitka this evening we got launched on a case for a possible man overboard basically a guy had told one of the other vessels that hey i got a problem on board if you don't hear from me in 20 minutes probably need some help and 20 minutes went by next thing you know we are on the go now knowing that the guy had already been in the water for 20 minutes time was super super critical we proceeded direct over the mountains at a couple thousand feet [Music] as a rescue swimmer when i hear piw or person in the water first thing i'm thinking about is is i hope he has a survival suit on because if you don't have that on you're not going to have much time once we arrive on scene we start searching and i was up on the flear the ford looking infrared looking for a possible heat signature of the survivor there's an upside down gift right there and there's something red right on the source there is water we got door speed ratchet doors got on scene and their boat was about a quarter mile offshore and there was a person standing on shore with a survival suit laid out red right next to the stick or something shore them as we come over the ridgeline it was about the same time we picked him up visually i was an individual in a survival suit i definitely looked like he was uh having trouble standing up had some kind of a door or a stick using it as a cane or a crutch so we knew that was our individual right away at that point realized there was a coast guard vessel on scene we did a low approach i'm gonna call that boat see what they could do six zero three zero uh roger looks like you guys might have to come boys though i'm probably not going to be able to get the boat up there and he looks like he's in pretty bad shape he's sitting on the ground it looks delirious over coast guard small boat they were able to get within shouting distance of him they weren't able to beach the boat because the shore was really rocky since the boat couldn't get close enough to pick him up it was up to us to get in and and hoist me down just tried talking with the gentleman i said he's not doing very well and there is still one other person that's missing uh he does not know where he's at when they made a contact with him from shore they found out that his nephew had jumped overboard to swim to shore and got into some trouble and was yelling for help in this case we had heard that there were two people in the water but looking at the survivor from the air we could tell that he was pretty hypothermic and with another small boat on scene that can start to search for the next survivor we made the decision to do a hoist he's on scene so let's uh set up for our approach it looks like a pretty steep beach yeah it's pretty steep sir once we decided to hoist we wanted to rise to check this part too we started completing it dave dressed out into his gear to get hoisted i brought dave to the cabin door i tapped him on the chest to release the gunner's belt and to check himself and then after that we went ahead and load checked him and sent him down to the beach comer's going down whoever's going down and holes when i'm approaching the survivor i can tell right away that he was hypothermic he was shivering uncontrollably he was mumbling he could barely form words and he couldn't stand or walk on his own power i knew i was going to have to help him into the basket i had to make sure he didn't have his arms out because there's a possibility of them getting crushed alongside the helicopter picked up survivor got him inside the cabin the problem was after that he was very cold he could not move and he was pretty large fella a lot bigger than me so i had to pick him up out of the basket on my own just to you know secure him get him stabilized and so i could pick up the swimmer and hoist fleet once i got back up in the cabin mark had already had the survivor and the seat buckled up so i threw a blanket around him and we had the heat going full blast all right take a look and see how he's doing he's hypothermic he's really cold he said he was in the water for a couple hours so probably want to try to get uh we're gonna take them from juno okay roger it's really really cold i don't know can barely answer my question [Music] roger it's really really cold i don't know you can barely answer my question yeah he's drinking some water a lot of times with hypothermic people they're dehydrated so i gave him a bottle of water and he started chugging that thing down after he had some water in him and warmed up a little bit he was able to answer a lot more questions yeah he's the captain all right do you know anything about where the other guy might be [Music] okay so the other guy wanted to swim to shore and uh started hauling for help and the current took him he got in to try to help him he did not have a survival suit on the information that he told me was that his nephew had jumped overboard to swim to shore got into some trouble and was yelling for help and then tim went in the water to try and help his nephew out we landed in juneau and the ems was waiting for us mark asked if i needed help bringing him out and i definitely needed help so we walked him out to uh the ems and passed them off in route dropping off the survivor we knew our job was half done when you know that there was somebody you know it's still out there and at this point time is really critical because you know you figure it's been probably about six hours since this individual's been on the water and you know our adrenaline's really rushing now we want to make sure that you know we do our best effort to get this guy home to safety [Music] in alaska whether it be summer or winter water's very cold after hearing that a person had been in the water with no flotation no survival suit for several hours it's difficult to hear as a rescuer we knew that we were just going to have to search return to last no position and then we will pass the search pattern over so we fly back to the position that we picked up the guy and then we just began a sector search and we're looking for anything in the water that could possibly be a human it's kind of disheartening because you're tired you're exhausted and it's literally like 250 miles that you fly in a square looking out the door just trying to find something in the water but that other guy's out there and we're not going to stop until we aid determined that he did not live or until we find it [Music] what's that right there mark that's just uh yeah okay [Music] area has been completed this particular case is kind of bittersweet we are able to help one and uh unable to find a second person and it's it's frustrating and it's pretty sad it's not a case you can really celebrate it's just it's part of the job sometimes it happens and and i just have to move on after that [Music] we get back on deck just in time to see another crew coming out and they're going to take the plane from us and they're going to go and they're going to keep looking this really shows what the coast guard does is we don't give up on people you know no matter what the [Music] [Applause] circumstances [Music] my name is tim lane this is a swift i just remember hitting the beach and i had a suit part way on and trying to take that suit off so i could stand and i remember taking it off and looking and seeing the coast guard boat and then down the beach i heard the chopper and it was just that quick i'd like to thank the flight crew and i mean everything went off without a hitch i was really happy that they decided to take me to juneau but i was really glad that they were able to come back and continue the search it's a tough deal that's for sure my nephew alan he crude for me when he was 13 years old and he was 25 this year if i hadn't called that tinder and he hadn't got a hold of a coast guard i don't think i'd be here either [Music] you

Channel: DangerTV

Views: 272,852

Keywords: emergency rescue, coast guard alaska, full episode, emergency rescue coast guard alaska, coast guard alaska full episode, coast guard alaska season 3 episode 10, full episode of coast guard alaska, full episode of coast guard alaska season 3, full episode of coast guard alaska season 3 episode 10, us coast guard, us coast guard alaska, united states coast guard, united states coast guard alaska, danger, dangertv, danger tv, Danger, DangerTV, Danger TV, search & rescue, helicopter, air

Id: qu43-sORxpA

Length: 42min 33sec (2553 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 25 2020