Helicopter Search - Lost Kayakers! | Coast Guard Alaska | Full Episode

when the weather gets rough in Alaska the Coast Guard stands ready to answer cries for help in Kodiak an unusually calm night seems like an unlikely time for a search and rescue while in Sitka the air crew is the only option for a man suffering from internal bleeding [Music] and when kayakers near Cordova are caught in an ice field the Coast Guard rushes to their aid 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 [Applause] Chet Coppock sucks are they for takeoff checklist perforation takeoff all right Roger zero six got airborne at this time zero five P we have safe flight keep me abreast about 12:30 a.m. we got a call from district letting us know that there was a 406 EPIRBs going off about 50 miles south of Kodiak the 406 EPIRBs almost like a homing beacon that they'll carry in case the ship was to get submerged or take on water sometimes they just get turned on and most of the time unfortunately they are false alarms but we have to respond to every one of them so we'll try to hail the vessel any way we can take on our radar nice tours busy lieutenant here and reply 860 helicopters you know it's a fairly quick flight to get out there with a one o'clock in the morning wake up you're trying to overcome a lot of grogginess you've got nothing on radar and even up till about ten miles out we had no radar returns whatsoever so we had serious doubts about a vessel being out there at least one that was still afloat beautify sparkle please go find some trouble out here yeah step out of our cuz it's a rabbit I started seeing debris in the water more and more debris and looking out the window and see a strobe light going off and thought it was a mess we hovered over there and it was three guys in the rafts and hanging out you didn't approach through the water here keep it plenty just drop the vessel back so when you see people in the raft you know that something's horribly wrong they're cold hypothermic who knows what's going on so the swimmer he's getting his stuff ready to go and we're all just talking about what needs to be done that's determined three we'll talk on the radio how we can recover them we'll talk about basket recovery so basically decided within a few seconds that we wanted to send the rescue swimmer down to communicate with those people because they had been in a raft out there in the dark cold seas they could be pretty much out of it at that time so they need somebody to directly communicate with them it didn't sound like they had a radio [Music] I see fly mega D knockout checklists so we all wasting time pretty much this brief to harness deployment to the water I swim over to the little skiff and access situation [Music] when I got over there is three gentlemen they were just in like sweatshirt and shorts no survival equipment [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] voices [Music] [Music] we were in radio comms with him within a minute and we found out very quickly there was one individual out of the three that was severely hypothermic it may have had other injuries as well and we also knew at that time that another person actually got trapped in the vessel and went down with the vessel according to them so we're concerned not only with the person on the raft with hypothermia we're also concerned that there's another man in the water somewhere that we don't know his location at this time so basically what I did was in the left seat I could search with our FLIR system which is infrared and look around to try to find him while we hoisted the the other survivors [Laughter] [Applause] I decided a basket hoist would not be a smartest idea so I ready to do it for this drop just because I'm even quickest route they sent down the strap to me and put him in you know I didn't really want to put the guy in the water because he was already in bad shape but it was the best method there really was no other option we we had to put one guy in the water at a time without chancing blowing that raft over and having three guys in the water potentially getting hypothermic from that none of them had Gumby suits on survival gear nothing so I delivered the sling to Ryan and he hooked him up and it brought him in the cabin as quick as we could and started getting him warm five Mac Poulsen we put blankets on the guy and a hypo bag to keep him warm I'm in the cabin still trying to get the first survivor warmed up the best that I can kind of like waiting is kind of I don't want to wake says more people in the rafter trying to come in but this guy needs to least get warmed up and get some protection on him move fast if you can so who delayed a little bit they're trying to warm him up and then I opened up the cabin door and Ryan decides to do rescue baskets of last you guys put the rescue swimmer back down and because these other survivors were ambulatory they could get up and move around those took a matter of minutes to get both of those survivors in the cabin Brian put him in the basket one at a time and brought him up as quick as we could sent a sling back down and picked up Ryan and closed the cabin door got these guys warm put all the blankets on the first guy that we brought in the other two guys they seemed to be well enough to make it back to Kodiak without anything we had everything on this guy trying to keep him warm right away I knew he wasn't well at all we hooked up the AED on him in it I didn't read a pulse or anything so I gave him a signal should we start pumping should we start blowing and he's like yes let's do it so we started started CPR and kept it up until we got back [Music] so the call comes in it's about midnight when we got on scene it was three guys in a raft one guy was worse off than the other ones we started CPR and just kept it up until we got back [Music] these Airways compromised possibly cardiac arrest because he's hypothermic I get the bag valve mask out give him some o2 once we landed I continued on deck until the ambulance got to the helicopter once we got on deck the ambulance drove up almost immediately to transfer this man to the hospital [Music] we offloaded them you have to you guys they were doing all right I mean as good as they can be watching their friend getting CPR but they walked out the helicopter on their own minimal assistance got the last guy off and stretch it into the ambulance paramedics took over they had warming pads and they continued CPR 60 maintenance pretty officer Wilson how can I help you he's getting his jaws suit on yes he's going [Music] when we were on deck we knew the first thing we wanted to do was get gas and get back on scene so we could search for the last possible survivor plan for you guys to get out there just relieve those guys here pumping cpr Claud I'm not cool we talked to ops was actually up and at the air station at that time he made the right call by saying that the rescue swimmer and our flight mech probably needs to be changed out at this point because they have been working extremely hard both of them had been doing CPR on the way back it's it weighs a lot on the mind and the body to do that kind of work and these guys we had replacements here we could swap them out quickly so that's what we did and then we went out to search for the last possible survivor on scene not that far away it's about 50 miles south of here we're gonna set up a sector surfaces we get out an assault process what if the guy made out of botox hope he's into brewery or something no it's not likely some miracle I'm a mt3 kristance aether flight mech here at Kodiak I got the call three in the morning we were airborne by 3:30 the ready pilots pile still were on the plane I knew that was possibly still people in the water so when we get told that all these guys were in pants and t-shirts no survival suits it was imperative that we got out there during that search period it was nighttime it was difficult to see in certain areas but we did have our infrared radar we could look around and see if there was any kind of heat signatures in the water we didn't see any a boat or a little bit of the track man okay right you're right you're right as well there are a couple reflective things go right back to here but it looked like I was operating the spotlight in the back field slick was about the only thing to really pick up we couldn't find the raft or much the way of too much debris we sat and looked at water you hope for the best you're training your want to see something but at that point you're hoping for a miracle you're hoping we can be the miracle but no sometimes you just only so much you do we head back it was approximately 6 or 7 a.m. when we departed scene because another helicopter came on scene to relieve us during the search they continue searching continued for the rest of that day we did everything within our capability of doing when you can't find them you know how much times elapsed that's pretty demoralizing humbles you that you're not always able to get there you know I'll ask out here yeah make mother nature's out to get you and a lot of times it wins Jaime had been working on the advantage for about six months the entire time I knew him he had fished and we just became friends and then ended up having two kids together they searched for nearly 20 hours over 1400 miles of water during those 20 hours was the most long 20 hours I have ever had the waiting and the praying and waiting hoping that someone was gonna call something positive at every minute I every hour that went by my faith was growing very little so I'm having to call me and to call the search off was one of the hardest things I think I've ever had to hear because then we really knew he wasn't coming up but for the Coast Guard it has to be one of the hardest things for them to to unsuccessfully to find somebody but I think that so much for everything that they did [Music] we get a lot of out-of-the-box stuff but I've definitely never had kayakers stuck in an ice field before it they're like stuck in this little area and the ice is closing in around him didn't have a really good picture of what they were facing some perfectly calm beautiful icy Bay with about a billion and a half chunks of ice the size of buses floating around in it you know [Music] [Applause] [Music] I'm lieutenant commander Josh Fitzgerald c-130 pilot Air Station Kodiak this weekend marks the annual crab festival in the community of Kodiak it's a time when everybody gets together and they have rides and games and great food and and lots of cool activities and we're gonna go out there and do a search-and-rescue demonstration the first thing you're gonna see is the flyby of the the Herc and the the 60 for this to happen the the Herc a supply as close to his slowest speed possible and the the 60 is gonna be just keeping pace [Music] so what you gotta see next is a 60s gonna come on the far side of Muir Island there and perform the the hoist and rescue operation [Music] name's Chris Moore maybe issues about technician second class usually when we do rescues there's never anybody except for the survivors around and it's all business trying to get it done and this time doing it in front of it the community here in Kodiak is it's a whole different feeling if you definitely in the door the helicopter excited it you know showing what you do [Music] [Music] after I set the survivor up in the basket I turned around and I've waved back at the crowd and they the whole crowd erupted in a in a roar of cheers it was pretty awesome crab fest is a huge deal around here I think everybody looks forward to it especially the Coast Guard guys that come through here to get to have something like this and this small island small community made me very proud to be a rescue swimmer in the Coast Guard and do what I do [Music] [Applause] [Music] to get the word just got a phone call this evening for medical evacuation on a seven year old gentleman in the town of Klawock pick up a gentleman who's got some internal bleeding and we're gonna take him over to the hospital and catch can [Music] first stuff like setup back here do you want to want to go ahead set up the litter or use one of weights gonna be [Music] name's Josh Neal third class AMT the US Coast Guard typical night on duty it's about 12:45 heard the alarm go off it was a guy with gastrointestinal implode into a stomach so we don't really know a whole lot until we got in the air when you have a GI bleed your biggest priority is getting your patient to higher care as quickly as possible I was kind of going into the situation blind Godley you're trying to kick in and do what you need to do [Music] phone call this evening for medical evacuation for a gentleman in the town of Klawock he's about 70 years old and he's got some medical issues he needs to get to the hospital over and catch you can we didn't have on this flight so it's extra important for me and a swimmer to be on the same page basically it's just me and him so if he needs anything I need to know what his intentions are what he's gonna do I'm in three months stationed up here in Sitka Alaska I knew that this patient was gonna need IVs if they weren't already given kind of prepared myself for the worst basically had everything taped to the ceiling so I knew I'd be your role as a aviation survival technician gonna be to take control the situation got your training kicked in and do what you need to do leaving six are going down two o'clock weather was okay but within about 10 to 15 miles up a walk in the airport itself we got into some fairly heavy rain showers so we're not sure if we will be able get through the the pass that's the quick way over to catch you can but we're gonna see how the weather unfolds here once we get the patient on board [Applause] we landed in Klawock waited about five minutes for the employees to show up when you have a GI bleed your biggest priority is getting a patient to hire care as quickly as possible once the ambulance showed up I jumped in the rig with the paramedics on board talked to them about the condition of the patient with the GI bleed he can go into shock from loss of blood so by administering IV you keep his basically his blood volume up higher one of the things we're very concerned about any time we're transporting a patient is the limited care we're able to provide in the helicopter so obviously not a great environment to performing patient care so once we get the patient loaded the rain actually in the area stopped make sure the patient's fairly stable we're gonna get him to catch a can the the quickest way we can and about my biggest concern was blood pressure dropping due to the internal bleeding the only way to really keep that up as to to make sure they just got a patent IV and and keep fluid in him to keep his heart rate up based on the patient's vitals in this general impression he was pretty stable he had verbally told me that he was more comfortable in a sitting position so we sat him up but besides that it was mostly just monitoring him in flight till we landed in Ketchikan [Music] we landed there months got out he went to the paramedics talked to them came back and then we offloaded the patient and took our equipment and put it to the side and we're on our way back to the helicopter when the patient signaled us down like called us back over there and we didn't know what to expect we were like I'll crap what what happened you know we didn't know what was going on he gave us a thumbs up and shook our hand and and was over to to muster out thank you it's a really amazing feeling knowing that someone that's in so much pain and just having a bad night and they don't talk to hold flight they're you know they're still so grateful for what we were able to do and it was best that my name is William T Myer I was born in Alaska 1938 yeah I was happy that the Coast Guard was here to help me out I was bleeding really bad all day long him Guardian can take it out on a snowy day the Coast Guard go out there all kind of weather my heart goes out to those people men and ladies of the Coast Guard I'm a stranger you know and you come and pick me up I'm real thankful for [Music] all right we got the call we got two kayakers that are stranded just below the Columbia glacier they're stranded in the ice the guys have dry suits on so the cold water shouldn't be a factor for a while it's about 60 miles northwest of here straight shot because of the weather we're gonna have to come around Hinchinbrook come up into the Prince William Sound and they work away up to the Columbia glacier once we get there we'll assess the situation but like you were saying Rob we're probably looking at a direct deployment do not want to put you in the water right it's all the ice bumping around smashing you up right so the concern was that we had two gentlemen and kayaks they had become separated from each other we knew that one gentleman had a radio he was talking to sector Anchorage and relaying their distress as far as getting the kayaks out from the rotor wash effects on the kayaks says something about this that's when you get there right anybody any questions about where we're going what we're doing how we're doing it two kayakers 60 miles northwest of here at 5,000 pounds of fuel and planes good to go we get a lot of out-of-the-box stuff but I've definitely never had kayakers stuck in an ice bill before it first thing you came to mind is they're like stuck in this little area and the ice is closing in around him how many millions of you know different scenarios can you think of in your head with that information [Music] [Applause] [Music] by the pistons here this is something so I don't think I'll do this for you rob just thanks to those years we know what you get injured by [Music] Yaser [Music] we took off from Cordova we were able to fly an abbreviated route there arrived on scene and it took us a little while to find the kayakers Tigers pathar kilos nikiro for god you have to fight we were prepared for those guys to be hypothermic they were getting wet they were starting a cold either one of you with or hypothermic the hundreds of live gonna have a really good picture of what they're facing just drop it for all up or we took off from Cordova we were able to fly an abbreviated route there it took us a little while to find two kayakers luckily enough we were able to hel them on channel 16 by the time we got there they were already making their way out they'd already seen an opportunity and they're going for it so so we didn't have a really good I'm gonna have a really good picture of what they're facing you know beautiful icy Bay with chunks of ice in it you know based on her initial call we were prepared for those guys to be mildly hypothermic they had good gear but still they were getting wet they were starting to get cold once they got out of the sick ice floe and they were able to paddle they started to warm up and we started to feel them better about 45 minutes to get there over Roger good copy and we're gonna fly the beach fly they call bluff wash we had comes with vessel on the east side of the ice floe it turns out they were actually the charter service that was responsible for the kayakers I'm just looking at that can you see how far up I'm gone I'm gonna need to go across the ice to pay here but definitely obey okay yeah I'm getting over to flatpoint I believe I'm thinking I'm gonna have to go or decline your Island and come down through that way so we maintain comms with that vessel and we were able to help them get through the ice floe help them pick their way through the ice floe okay Tigers that's the careful for look left is the bluff watch [Music] just drop it for all it for pretty much to the camp oh they are really good yeah we were in a hover over both vessels and they look to be close to each other but they actually couldn't see each other being on the surface of the water kayakers have to look through and over the ice field we luckily had really good radio communication so we're able to track the vessel towards the kayakers [Music] what the boats onboard can go from here thanks bluff watch 6:04 for departing at this time you guys don't need any further assistance or we don't like to leave scene until we're confident that the survivors are in a good situation and that the vessel has them that's a relief to not have to deploy the swimmer to a dangerous situation and it's a survivor so we're in great shape that would be pretty bad back around - yeah pretty fun yeah working sometimes back up in the nose if you saddle [Music] I'm bill Burwell lieutenant and mh-60 tango pilot I was still sleeping pager woke me up and found out we were gonna launch for a 65 year old man with broken ribs raspberry Islands a short flight is situated just to the north of Kodiak Island but the weather was kind of closing in the wall it's pretty close you know there's still the potential for some varying weather conditions throughout the flight we heard that the patient had sustained a pretty intense fall we decided to also bring the corpsman along with our rescue swimmer to provide you know an extra level of care [Music] [Music] I'm HST Krystyna McRobert with broken ribs there's other things you have to worry about that maybe could puncture along that it could impede the person's ability to breathe there's just a bunch of things that go through your mind what if what it could be and just prepare for what the worse situation could be my name's Nathan Fila my aviation maintenance technician second class here in uh Air Station Kodiak once we got on scene we just slowed hover taxi over the area being the pilot started talking about the best location for us to do a rough area landing on the road that's pretty good as we're landing was pretty windy and there was snow it was definitely one of the more confined areas that I've ever landed in [Music] okay can we get help once we got on deck we left the hsow and the swimmer out and they wouldn't talk to the people that were had four-wheelers out there that would give them a ride up to the where the lodge was where the gentleman fell every couple inches when we got there guy was laying on the bunk and we weren't sure what to expect how he would be able to move or what would be most comfortable for him somebody to kind of figure that out [Music] we heard that the patient had sustained a pretty intense fall we decided to also bring the corpsman along with our rescue swimmer to provide you know an extra level of care [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] there was lots of people to help that made it easier to get him out of the rack that he was in and then we secured a Minnesota hunter and carried him down to the plane was a little bit icy so it's always a little bit of a challenge in Alaska carrying somebody on you know 100 yards down an icy pathway but everybody did just fine and communicated well so why they're up there loading the patient I was getting the cabin ready you know clearing out the area for the litter to be set up so once they got close enough the aircraft I called them into the aircraft making sure it was clear from the rotor arc and everything like that once we got the cabin secured and the cap door closed Conn the pilot up and cleared the trees and we flew back towards port yet laying down was the most comfortable for him almost anything heard him moving so we kept him laying down and tried to keep him comfortable the corpsman had everything under control took us about less than 30 minutes to get back to Kodiak when you're in the bush of Alaska you could only be 15 or 20 minutes flight away from town but when the weather gets bad and maybe a medical condition warrants immediate response it can feel like you're a thousand miles away we really are their lifeline especially in an emergency whenever we go out there's a lot of variables that we have to encounter so the combination of you know how kind of isolated the hunting cabin was with the fact that the weather was kind of closing in it really made us the only source for help when we returned to Kodiak there was an ambulance waiting and patient was transferred to take it to medical care this was an extremely rewarding duty day we were able to save someone's life and also encounter some professional challenges so all in all it's a great day [Music] [Music] on your marks get set go my name is Dan Rohr we're here for cutting a crab festival today and this is a survival suit race they've run down the ramp they get to the bottom of the ramp they put their survival suits on their zipper checkers there to make sure that they've actually got everything all zipped up you get in the water and then they swim to the raft out there last year's time was 1 minute and 13 seconds in the water let's cheer them on [Applause] two minutes 2.2 three seconds Jason Bunch from aviation survival technician we're here for the Kodiak survival suit race 33rd annual survival suit race we went in it quite a bit and everybody's watching and everybody expects us to win so I'm more nervous now than jumping into the Bering Sea alright team number two blessed day Sam Jason and Jeff you guys can head to the ramp the reason is a four-man team is because a lot of the salmon Sanders that's what they fish with a fish with a four-man crew so the idea is to build as much reality into it as possible of what it would be like if you're actually on a salmon santur and had some kind of emergency situation racers on your marks get set go [Music] [Applause] [Music] these guys on is they getting their suits again they have to have the zipper check or check them make sure they're all good to go first man in a while [Music] obviously those last two water faster than the old man in front of them there are piling in on top of each other [Applause] one minute eight point eight seconds [Applause] about suits saved hundreds of lives in the in Alaska waters for Alaska fishermen and Alaskan people so we want to just continue to honor the safekeeping of the survival suit and the use of the survival suit and lasting water so that's why we do it and we just love it next year we'll win it again [Music]

Channel: DangerTV

Views: 141,078

Rating: 4.9160838 out of 5

Keywords: helicopter search - lost kayakers, helicopter search, lost kayakers, coast guard alaska, full episode, coast guard alaska full episode, helicopter search - lost kayakers coast guard alaska, coast guard alaska season 3 episode 4, coast guard alaska season 3, full episode of coast guard alaska, us coast guard, united states coast guard, us coast guard alaska, danger, dangertv, danger tv, Danger, DangerTV, Danger TV, coast guard search & rescue, search & rescue, helicopter, helicopters

Id: _VwDnsBNJxQ

Length: 42min 33sec (2553 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 17 2020