Lost at Sea! | Coast Guard Alaska | Full Episode

at Air Station Kodiak drop drop drop the Coast Guard flies deep into the Arctic to help one of their own they could potentially lose the capability to use two of their engines Alaskan waters proved to be treacherous for one fishermen the crew attempts to find a man missing in the enormous North Pacific you know you have the potential to save someone that's out there and a rescue swimmer has to jump ship after an injured fisherman goes for one wild ride he can clearly see that our survivor he's in for the ride of his life the vast Alaskan wilderness a place where beauty is cloaked by danger here every day 350 highly trained men and women risk their lives to save others America's deadliest waters are protected by Coast Guard Alaska [Music] all right folks what we're doing today is we're taking some parts to the Coast Guard Cutter Healey the icebreaker up near the North Pole I'm Captain Bill deal I'm the commanding officer of Air Station Kodiak and every once in a while in addition to doing the commanding officer responsibilities I get to do operational missions so that's what that's what we're gonna do here the weather today shouldn't be a problem for us a little bit of icing to the east of our route we're gonna be in the clouds what's the way up there the Coast Guard Cutter Healy is Coast Guard's only operational icebreaker and they're operating way up in the Arctic right now they're fairly close to the North Pole and they're having problems with some of their systems the cooling system and one of their engine rooms has had a problem they've repaired several times that are afraid it's not going to hold and they could potentially flood an engine room and lose the capability to use two of their engines our total transit from here to scene it's just under 2,000 miles so it's a long way we're looking at just under 12 hours of flight time anybody have any questions okay let's do it but the parts procedure is the codis difficult point plan any questions with that not at all sir where the icebreakers so far north they've been operating real close to the North Pole and that is a long way up there so we've gotta fly directly to them five and a half hours out they're dropping the gear and then five and a half hours of flying back but it's a doggone long way flying up near the North Pole there's no easy feat the distances are vast and there's not a whole lot of options if we have an in-flight emergency [Music] if Ezra had northeast how's your wet compass he says we're heading moist well then the magnetic compasses start doing weird things up there unfortunately we've got pretty good systems in the c-130 our compasses are stabilized by gyros we also back that up with GPS satellite even though our different magnetic compass is pointing all over different directions our gyro compass between it's fairly benign as long as everything works just fine but if we did have to go back to old-school magnetic compass stuff it could get a little exciting I got about 25 miles out of here once we got down on scene we're able to see better we weren't sure what the ice was gonna look like and once we got down it would look like pancakes about two miles in diameter and they're all wedged in together so we tried to find the largest pancake which was just off the port side of the cutter so we're planning on doing it a series of three drops the first one is gonna be the pedal can drop okay Haley says they see it they say it doesn't look like it went through the ice so full just will be the second throw front drop drop drop oh boy backboard drops trust we made several approaches and three successful drops to the big pancake they essentially pulled up next to it like a nice dock and unboard it and walked around the ice and gathered their parts flying up in the Arctic is underneath perks of the job that's a really awesome experience to get to do something that very few people get a chance to do we have now set the record for the farthest north drop that's the farthest north that the Coast Guard has ever done air drops from a c-130 yeah five hours a drone it for 20 minutes of action it ended up being eleven point three hours of which most of that was transit time and crossing thousands of miles in some cases and potentially going through several different weather systems just the challenges of being able to fly in those conditions it's pretty tough in the Coast Guard there is this mystique this legendary status about being Station Kodiak because of the weather and the types of missions the distances she covered the things that we do up here is happening around us all the time it's it's truly inspirational [Music] [Applause] operations antenna Forsyth yes sir what I got from district it was a 48 year old male that was hit in the head with a crab pot from a fishing vessel what happened was we overheard some traffic just south of a fog neck that was from the captain of a 76 foot fishing vessel one of his members on board took a crab pot to the head he was in and out of consciousness he was breathing so what we were doing was why we were listening to that we already had a crew that was on a different mission so we have just diverted them because they were already ready to launch names Tony Dewinter lieutenant aviator I'm a pilot here at Air Station Kodiak the call came in about 12:30 that they needed us to reconfigure for a search and rescue 40 miles to the west of here just on the other side of the island of Kodiak for a fisherman that had been hit in the head by a crab pot about 700 pound piece of gear and so they wanted to get him off the vessel as quick as possible heading right now about 365 and it's gonna be about a name's Rafael Aguero and I'm a rescue swimmer at Air Station Kodiak Alaska there's gonna be Elliott once it got unseen the Seas were kicking at about eight foot so there was a pretty good roll going okay I had the EMT kit on my back so it was you know 50 pounds of added weight going down on the hoist to the back of the boat silvers going to bring out some earthly swimmers go down so we have a nice voice ting area to lower Ralph down to the lower him down with just a bare hook just straight on the hook harness him down so I got down to the deck just fine and I assess the patient his eyes were normal they weren't dilated or constricted he was talking to me face to face and it appeared that nothing was wrong with this guy at all just you know he got whacked in the head pretty good all right feel like the point of it and they sent the litter down and I put the guy inside of the litter and it put him in a neck brace I put him on a backboard as well just as a precaution Brad you need to put his head in first or feet first for an injury like this gonna bring up my head first and then someone can still get next oh right here let us clear the vessel let me back up their trailer just filling it a little rough outside that's gonna happen so I lift the litter up and I notice that the guys getting kind of scared which is usual because you're strapped in laying on your back getting hoisted to a helicopter so I bring him in and kind of push them up towards the front of the helicopter so I lower the hook back down and lift Ralph off the boat bring him back into the helicopter and we're sitting there Ralph begins his assessment of the guy and we noticed that he's not doing so hot I looked at him and I can't say for sure but it looked like he was having a full-blown seizure in the back of the helicopter [Music] [Applause] we got medical transportation week back to here station project and all parties have been notified that we got a call that a guy on a crab boat has been hit in the head with a crab pot right on the other side of the island so it's a short 15 minute flight over there somebody gets hit in the head with a thousand-pound crab pot it's a serious medevac once I got on scene it was a pretty standard highest I assess the patient the patient appeared to be fine they son D let her down we listed this guy up to the helicopter and it looked like he was having a full-blown seizure he's been like that we got of it here start seizing holding on to the d-rings of the litter and he will not let go I really didn't know what was going on I open up our EMT kit and my first thing is to just assess his arrow and making sure that he's breathing we're gonna bump an oxygen right now ready what [Applause] [Music] so we go into the medical personnel arrival make sure the ramp is clear for our arrival that put them on a ventilator to a system with breathing I noticed that his eyeballs were constricting and also dilating and I've never seen that before it's the first time that's ever happened to me it was breathing so rapidly and so erratic that I was concerned with his heart and I put the AED pads on there just an automated external defibrillator all right analyzing where my big concern was making sure that his heart wasn't going to go out and if it did I was ready to push that button give him a shock that's what up and down put your hand under step and it's going up and down I think it's whippy breath right now my going crazy right now [Applause] [Music] [Music] - he's crazy right now Roger on the ground there all right air speed 50 sir sorry ambulance as we near Kodiak I could hear him over the noise of the helicopter going where am i what am i doing it might on the ground yet you had a look in his eye like he had no idea what was going on [Music] hey Ralph do you wanna running out before we sit down no sir he's critical I feel that it was my most difficult case because it was the first real medical case that I have ever done you know I questioned whether or not I knew what to do but instinct just sort of took over instinct and training took over and I got it done [Music] here's one of the harder cases that have been on just because things turned south so fast you get called out in a case you don't really know what's gonna happen so you can prepare to the fullest and anything that you can but we weren't expecting this you can only do so much in the back of the helicopter I think we did everything we could hope the guy out [Music] with every case you go out and do anything can and will happen you know whether or not he was going to shock or actually seizing from the from the injury itself the team was outstanding everybody relied on the training that they had and that's what brings the crew together for each case we do like this you know I felt this pulsed his boss was a boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom I mean he was News hanging by a thread no matter how many cases you'd go on you can't be prepared for everything that's gonna happen will you curveballs thrown at us all the time and it's part of our job just to be ready [Music] it's all about training it's about memory muscle memory about training and training and training and training that's what we do getting launched for a person overboard 900 miles away from Kodiak it's definitely a challenge in case in itself we're very optimistic we're very amped up you know you have the potential to save someone that's out there [Music] all right good afternoon everybody I'm Podesta Chris Moore aviation survival technician here at Air Station Kodiak do your whet drills classroom lecture today wet drills are a Coast Guard mandated annual requirement you know we run through their survival vests we go through their rafts all the survival items they can find in them it's very important all right I need a volunteer yes you go buddy can you put this blindfold on we're done sir here in Alaska the elements will kill you without the proper training this is why we stress as much as we stress them about these survival items and run them through drills them on where it's at and how to use it Steve can you find your mark 124 you got it can you find here 406 all right good job go and take it off come around of applause [Applause] and you guys can come over here and get your Gumby to this is what we call the crab cooker it's a second stop in our annual wet rolls we have to do this once a year just practice our survival training spend some time in the classroom first and then doing all the stuff out in the water and then we'll go to the pool and do our swimming drills we found in the past when we've had mishaps that his trainings been real helpful being able to get out of the aircraft and knowing what to do once they got out this is the raft part we're gonna swim out to the raft and link up in a centipede style then we'll do some signaling and kicking with our legs and stuff and I'll swim out to the raft together then once we get in the raft we'll go out and apply some of the classroom stuff that we've just reviewed yearly wet drills for all air crew members it's a controlled setting we're just here to make sure that everybody knows what to do in an emergency situation after they get out of the life raft they're gonna come back to the pier and then they're gonna light off some live pyrotechnics [Music] it's an annual requirement that they get to at least see one shot off but we have enough to where a couple people get to shoot along all right go ahead and hold handle down all you're gonna do is pull it and you're going toss over onto those rocks if we didn't complete this annual training the end result would be more lives lost in crashes or any kind of mishaps that we have throughout the Coast Guard [Music] the fixed-wing aircraft to the pool after this and they have their annual swim in the pool and it's a more controlled environment there but they'll have to swim in their flight suits and with their vests on they're the rotary wing aircraft a have to do what we call sweat training it's our shallow water egress trainer the shallow water egress trainer is our trainer that we used and we flip them upside down in the pool so it's a more controlled environment but they have to learn how to egress simulating an upside-down helicopter in the water it's all about training it's about memory muscle memory about training and training and training and training that's what we do we train all the time we test all the time we flip upside down we get our reference point we disconnect everything and we can do all of our egress exercises from there and pop our mercy window and get out this training could mean life or death they could mean that it's one of those things where if you find yourself in a situation where you need to use these techniques they could save your life one more year wet girls complete a young man is injured his leg it sounds like it's possibly broken fractured it's about a 50-mile flight getting launched 900 miles away from Kodiak it's definitely a challenge in case in itself when you're flying so far out and whether that's the nominal for searching conditions and your flight at 500 feet of the ocean there's a lot of risk involved [Music] I asked lieutenant breckel on the audio desk at Kodiak is gone the aircraft commander was just wanted me to call you guys and you just want to confirm you guys wanted he sounds like a five leg parallel search we got a call from district 17 command center requesting to launch a c-130 for a Man Overboard about 950 miles southeast of Kodiak so it's almost like flying across the United States you know to go there and come back I'd like fly into Tennessee from Seattle you're going with the o9 the multi-engine fixed-wing aircraft like ac-130 is what is used in this type of case the helicopter asses just don't have the range to go this far 900 miles south of Kodiak for us it's pushing the edge of our envelope for us to go there but it is certainly doable [Music] my name is Lieutenant Jeanine Minzy I'm currently stationed at Air Station Kodiak Alaska and I'm a c-130 pilot here getting launched for a person overboard 900 miles away from Kodiak it's definitely a challenge in case in itself but even if it's a grim picture that we're painted we're very optimistic we're very amped up you know you have the potential to save someone that's out there we got a search action plan which basically gave us a position where the boat was but they thought they lost the guy which is down here and then where the boat was there which is about 350 miles which gave us a track line where to start where to finish out I would probably say go to the farthest point first just since the boats coming back the opposite direction when you're flying so far out and whether that's less the nominal for searching conditions and you're flying at 500 feet of the ocean there's a lot of risk involved [Music] visibility divided channel and picked for this type of track we usually do what's called a Charlie Sierra search or creeping line search and so we usually go back and forth over that track line we find them will drop our survival rafts and then look for any vessels in the area that we can victor them in so they can rescues they're the survivor really just never know a lot of people have that drive and have that fire inside them that they do want to survive when they're out there we try to stay as optimistic as possible after searching for a couple hours on scene you realize that he had been in the water for more than 22 hours and even if he's wearing a survival suit the survivability may be something that is questionable at this point those times are a little bit disappointing but at some point you really do have to come back you know for the safety of the crew for the endurance of the aircraft for that crew at that time on that story you done all you can do and now it's time to go back to land so it's a little disheartening to know that you know you didn't find them [Music] [Music] my husband's name is George and he's also a pilot in the United States Coast Guard and we also have a daughter who's seven months old right now when I come home from cases like this missing people it really makes me just want to pick my daughter up give her a kiss give her a hug then you know decompress all the information oh you're good at this already flip to the electrical section there we go that's what I do every night study hello how's it going my wife Janine is making some halibut tacos and also some chicken as she makes it pretty well so we invited just a couple of friends over and share some some good food and drink and talk your girlfriend is happy to see you [Music] my good friend Amy is in town tonight she was a roommate in flight school so it's really nice to be able to get together with her the other person we have over is Jim who was just around the corner from us and he's been stationed with us before in Clearwater Florida so it's really nice to get together with him as well so how do you like flying up there you know what um I was a little nervous when I first got here because everyone talked about how challenging the environment was and yep how hard it was to get in and out of the airports and a lot of the terrain but to be honest I've been like really excited about the flying here just because it's freaking beautiful the views are phenomenal looking at the glaciers the wildlife as far as just the environment it's a great place to be yeah I got to see orcas today and a momma and baby humpback whale we were out playing yeah see that means your people pay for this stuff and you know we're fortunate to be able to be working this exactly like flight school isn't it right now you know in such a small community in a social aspect it's really fun to poke in each other a little bit alright it looks good no isn't that a change yes seriously so you know thanks for coming by and it's forever since we've seen you since flight school and everything and once in a while and Disneyland and after that yeah yeah I'm glad you get the chance to come by and jam it's always a pleasure thank you George thanks it's nice to be fed the Kodiak you're pretty isolated from your family so it's really a good thing to build a network within the Coast Guard community so it's pretty regular for us to get together to have dinner to go fishing to go hunting or just you know hang out [Music] Air Station Kodiak Oh D latech Coleman speaking I'm looking forward to celebrating my wife's birthday tonight normally we get off duty at 4 o'clock half an hour before that alarm goes off sure enough we got a medivac a young man is injured his leg it sounds like it's possibly broken fractured and it's time to do some flight planning hopefully about 20 minutes on CNN about half an hour back over town fishing vessel can use that flight surgeon told me to give morphine so that's probably one of the only things I'll be doing other than vitals they're in a beer barn really soon the first thing we find out is the position luckily I've got a real sharp operations duty officer who's already applied the position for us you guys are up to speed on what the the general planners we've got a picture of the vessel on Coast Guard file to take away this in the helicopter to see what are some of the hazards that we're gonna deal with as we try to negotiate pulling this guy off I want to get out of there as fast as I can it's gonna be a lot harder than we thought [Music] [Music] right now you stay in a few feel good yes today wrong yeah sure enough we got a medevac off of a small boat it's time to get back in the zone my crew is great the fast they're dressed out ready to go a young man is injured his leg it sounds like it's possibly broken fractured it's about a 50-mile flight I've got a position and we're heading out there agent welcome to duty the world's kind of exploding lost a little bit 15 minutes ago now Motor Vessel to new scope they called it the Coast Guard said hey well we've got one of our crew members it's leg got caught in a line like exquisite snapped off the side he's got a bone sticking out lots of bleeding in the meantime they've rigged a basically the best kind of splint that they could they're bringing her back here yeah the plans to bring them back here so you're gonna need to call the the Kodiak fire department for the person's transfer and the the ambulance probably I'd give the ambulance a shout and probably bout 10 or 15 minutes no they've got somebody coming in so these guys are up here basically could be at the north side sixties in the route they're probably gonna be going through the well past low-vis route right now [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] sitting in a hover ninety feet over this boat you truly get a sense of how bad the the hoisting area is those dangers both for the crew of the boat and for the Coast Guard those fishermen are dealing with crab pots lines anchors buoys there's all sorts of stuff that can potentially injure them as for the Coast Guard what I'm looking for is an open area and unfortunately in this case I'm not gonna have it because there's cranes radio antennas could possibly entangle our rescue hoist [Music] it was a tib-fib fracture an open fracture and there was blood and from the severity of what we were told what we needed to do is help him get pain management as soon as possible pretty much a copy down I don't want to go any closer it was a hoist it was a little higher than I'm used to if I got a little bit higher it might take a little while to get down there but the helicopter was right where it needs to be is just the wind and the motor wash and the waves someone's going out in support right when you're that high easily wrap your hoist cable or a trail lighting around one of those antennas the flight mechanic Steve was telling me the positioning over the boat with my co-pilot Jess tell me the altitudes just kind of take it all in and put in a couple of control inputs to stay on top of the boat so where is swimmers on deck [Music] yes what Marco hit show with the litter if you're okay with that there are a lot of cables and a support cable that are coming off at the top of the boat a certain point we just said you know we picked the spot be careful it's taken nice and slow but we got it done they had his foot splitted up his extra tough boot on and then they actually he's lying with pieces of wood and the wood he had nails sticking out of it I didn't even bother messing with it he was hurting and if we would move him around he would let us know it her Oh we had to come in so high over the boat and our trail lines and our you know hoist cables are limited to certain lens Steve my flight mechanic was just giving me really good direction it's just easy forward and right back left it's a geometry game when you're honing down into one spot and that's the only spot you can do anything with picking up one patient still takes surprisingly long because of the amount of stuff that's got to happen putting them in the litter you know that's why we put Eric down so we can get him in the litter get him strapped in good and tight you have a plan when we put Eric down but as soon as he's off the hook they're on their own [Laughter] [Music] the thing that I was most concerned about was slumping the patient in the litter it's a treacherous ride coming up any kind of rescue device into a coaster helicopter you can clearly see that our survivor who's in for the ride of his life [Music] I've got a medevac off the small boat we've got a guy he's broken his leg possibly fractured there's blood on deck I've got about 60 mile an hour winds coming off with the rotor wash and now all of a sudden I'm putting a guy strapped to a cable in this entire environment and so it's unstable and the guy's gonna start spinning we're gonna try to minimize that by minimizing the time that our survivors sitting on that rescue hook [Music] literally said again [Applause] bring it over in the door we also had a dave called the health service specialist he came with us to administer medical care he actually jumped in to help Steve out which was just some extra manpower they needed when he was pulled into the back of the helicopter I checked his leg out and it was splinted really well the main you thought going through my mind was to take care of his pain management which with the injury he was gonna be in severe pain so I broke out the morphine and I gave him two milligrams we just to kind of take the edge off a little bit which helped he definitely relaxed a lot more good plan I just had a feeling I was like I bet they want me to get in the water let's do it I was like if I should ask the guy to slow it down maybe we stop they slowed it down and I jumped off or is it the water bring forth recovery I was just over at 3 o'clock he's already closed it's the procedure that a lot of swimmers do and we always prepare for we take our fins and booties and whatnot so he's getting in the water with some way from the boat so we're just [Music] hey the helicopters 30 minutes out yep there's a highway who steals a little higher than I'm used to that was hardest one I've ever done couldn't have a voice with a better group of guys with Eric Steve Dave called and Jess my co-pilot [Music] we have folks specially trained here in Kodiak that are trained in handling medical emergencies and transporting them from the helicopters to the emergency services these people are experienced they have the gear and they're on scene ready to go ready to take our 24 year old injured patient to the ambulance that's going to get him out of it and get him to help [Music] I'll be late for my wife's birthday party so I gotta go but I'm not home right now I'm sitting here talking to you guys so I got to get out of here [Music] [Music] yes sir how you doing name's Jerome Selby I'm the mayor of the Kodiak Island borough we're at the annual Coast Guard appreciation dinner it's an event where we celebrate the Coast Guard being in Kodiak this is the best relationship between the United States Coast Guard and a community of anywhere in the United States and so we all like to at least once a year get together and not everybody know we appreciate each other and we're going to continue to work together on a close basis with events like this the community of Kodiak very eloquently lets us know how they appreciate the Coast Guard so in my simple way let me say the feeling is mutual and so many places I've been where the community doesn't really understand what the Coast Guard does but here in Kodiak it's a lot different you are part of America's Finest and it is a privilege and an honor to have you serving this great country here on this little old community on Kodiak Island when you folks have rescued somebody or when you folks have done something outstanding and sometimes we don't get a chance to really say thank you so we like to take this one night a year and try to make sure that we say thank you and that everybody in the Coast Guard knows just how much we really do appreciate what happens so thank you very much for your service to Kodiak and to the United States of America so let's get we are truly honored and privileged to work and live in a place like Kodiak where the community knows what we do and really appreciates what we do it's it's like no place else that I've ever been and we take on those additional risks when we go out and Alaska's worst weather when we match our skills our wits and our best equipment against the nastiest fury that Mother Nature has to offer that's when it gets personal for us it's what we do it's who we are and it's personal [Applause]

Channel: DANGER TV

Views: 409,136

Rating: 4.8914957 out of 5

Keywords: Coast Guard Alaska, Coast Guard, US Coast Guard, United States Coast Guard, US military, United States Military, Coast Guard rescue, Kodiak Alaska, Alaska, rescue, search & rescue, Coast Guard search & rescue, helicopter, helicopters, helicopter rescue, helicopter search & rescue, full episodes of tv show coast guard alaska, reality tv, full episodes of reality tv, full episodes of coast guard alaska, danger, dangertv, danger tv, Danger, DangerTV, Danger TV, Coast Guard ships, ships

Id: ZC5k2cnzdag

Length: 42min 33sec (2553 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 06 2020