Lost in the Wilderness! | Coast Guard Alaska | Full Episode

[Music] as winter fast approaches alaska the coast guard responds to emergencies all over the state in ketchikan my neighbor over there there's this gift going on in the circle the guy laying in there i think he's dead in sitka rescuers battle hurricane force winds to find an overdue vessel we knew we were in for a long morning with the conditions that we took off into and in kodiak an unknown distress call sends the coast guard into the alaskan wilderness you don't know what it is if it's somebody who's lost somebody who's cold somebody had to run in with wildlife so we're like okay let's go check it out [Music] 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] i'm lieutenant simon green and i'm a search and rescue pilot stationed at air station sitka alaska if i'm not working spending time with my family uh here in sitko we actually spend a lot of time just walking downtown and when it's ringed with snow-capped mountains and it's quiet it's a blast my wife is named mary grace phenomenal mom we just had our second kid so now we have a 22 month old and a two week old so a lot of work but she's just a phenomenal person i have no idea what this one's gonna be she's gonna be something that has to do with adventure for sure yeah she's uh she definitely takes after me she's pretty uh pretty fearless pretty adventurous or maybe a stripper i don't know all right get away from that pole keep walking sitka is quite different from anywhere i've ever lived just in terms of the smallness of it the weather but i really like it it's a very small town feel the coast guard community is really tight-knit we're really liking it so far hey ed look at the two bald eagles up there [Music] you just see their little fanny too i love it here just having the natural beauty of sitka i think most pilots want to come to alaska i think professionally it's kind of at the apex of what we do in terms of weather in terms of missions we just enjoy the hell out of it [Music] sector was saying that their boats have looked at the marine forecast the marine forecast is calling for 60-plus knot winds so probably be leaving here around seven then we're going to be following the qq straight through rocky pass down towards point baker and then over to wrangle we're looking for a 22-foot vessel individual transiting from one one small town to another small town in southeast alaska through a channel and um basically he was supposed to be in it at 6 pm last night and nobody's heard from him a crew had been out all night looking for an overdue vessel they've been flying for almost six hours they were going to bag out which means they can no longer fly their fatigue level has been met so we need another crew to come in and prosecute a first slide search sir we've got our guard set up with a sector roger flight controls and flight instruments all look good system instruments are in the green if there is someone out there their chance of stumbling upon you know a house on the shore or safety shelter warmth is almost zero if you go in the water and you're wet at all with the water temperatures and the air temperatures and the wind around here your rate of survival goes down drastically the thing that makes alaska unique is how unpredictable the weather is so what you see when you take off and what the weather is going to be like right around the corner could potentially be in as frequently two very different things the only thing that's consistent about alaska is inconsistency you don't know what to expect in a place like southeast alaska there's a good chance that if this person is in distress that they're in it by themselves and if we don't get on scene no one else will the whole idea of first light search is to be on scene as the sun's rising coast guard sector juno coast our sector [Music] the boat hadn't been seen in either of the two villages and up here you know it's not like there's a third village that you can just pull into and the guy decided to spend the night there chances are if he wasn't in cake and he wasn't in wrangle he was in he was in distress be advised i've seen leather visibility five miles and ceilings are around two thousand feet over as we got out to outside waters for our low visibility route and made our turn to the south um we got hit with 50 to 60 knot winds we knew we were in for a long morning with the conditions that we took off into right out of sitka all right guys we're gonna be making a left hand turn 180 degrees and out the right door as soon as we come around it's gonna be a little harder i don't see anything that really matches they look like fishing boats so what we did first was we did a sweep of the harbor and uh coastline area of cake and then we got a call from our sector ops center sector go ahead looks like you might have a vessel relay and for the vessel you're looking for the keeper the closest we can tell he's on the point barry side of uh conclusion island over roger will be there he said he was in distress his boat was sinking and he needed to abandon ship he gave a geographical position and so uh we basically made a b-line directly to his position you actually hear the vessel themselves and they're saying they're sinking i think that's when everything kind of changes started flying a lot faster we start setting up the back of the aircraft to affect the rescue with the basket the litter the hoist getting all that stuff ready to go when we arrive on scene we're not wasting time doing that so we go from just a crew to a search and rescue crew and everything crystallizes at that moment the nets point barry right there at our 11 o'clock so he should be dead ahead there he is one o'clock hello you got dork speed [Music] when we first got on scene we saw the boat was fairly open in the back i knew it was gonna be a little bit tricky to hover over that but the guy physically was talking to us and physically could move and do things so we decided to pull him off the boat just using the basket [Music] our plan is to pick you up with a basket uh once it's on deck go ahead and climb into it keep your legs and arms inside the basket at all times and i will bring you up once we actually moved over the boat the seas were a little bit bigger than we had originally anticipated six to eight with some ten footers rolling in and the down was not underway it's a lot easier to hoist to a boat that's moving this boat was dead in the water and so we can blow it around and it's being blown and affected a lot more by the winds and waves [Music] one of the more hairy evolutions that we can do in terms of a basket delivery to a boat the biggest thing that you're trying to manage is doing it quickly but not rushing anything to the point that it's not going to be safe if we were to snag the basket on deck and have to sear the hoist we're likely going to see this guy end up in the water and have to get pretty creative from that point [Music] we had a caulk that came in and it was an overdue 22-foot bay liner with one person on board and he was uh got underway from cake [Music] and was going to wrangle alaska and i believe he was six hours overdue by the time the coast guard was notified the weather was pretty bad it was gusting as high as 60 knots that makes it quite a bit more challenging fortunately the second crew that went out looking for the survivor right before they arrived on scene they heard a good samaritan vessel and they were able to fly right to them [Music] is [Music] [Music] [Applause] lester koontz i live in wrangle alaska i've lived in alaska for 47 years uh next month will be 48. great forward [Music] i was going through rocky pass and motor conked out about halfway through and then the boat slid and i heard a sickening crunch and i figured at that point i punched a hole somewhere in the forward part of the boat and i was going no no no i ran back lifted my engine room cowling and it was completely underwater at that point the boat was filling pretty fast and here come the weather and boy did it come and it came in hurry i was completely nervous at that point i go i gotta get out of here [Music] when i heard the chopper coming that was a big relief it was a sound i always remember if the coast guard hadn't shown up i had 10 maybe 20 minutes tops to stay on that boat and then i would have swam for the island alaskan waters at this time of year is like jumping into a cooler full ice you don't last very long the hypothermia can set in within 10 minutes some people 20 minutes i consider myself pretty tough but not that tough [Music] he wasn't hypothermic he was in good shape the only thing that he was upset about was the fact that he had left his tobacco on board thank god moment i would like to say thanks to the chopper crew that got me out and all the coast guard was a good feeling to know that you're being looked for on the way back from wrangle to sitka in the short time that it took us to drop off this individual his vessel had been taken by the seas saying it sunk it was gone and there was no sign of it whatsoever so today is is kind of like the culmination of everything that we train for i think it's why everybody especially at an air station joined the coast guard we get to go out in weather conditions like today 60 plus knot winds and pull a guy off of a sinking boat and save his life that's a pretty phenomenal way to spend a day [Music] ready begin one two three at kodiak we have an airman apprentice program 25 stop rocking 26. i like to see what they're capable of doing and see how far they can push themselves mentally and physically no rock that one's not going to count that doesn't count no rest let's go you're done all right for beginning this test you were told there is no rest on these exercises is that correct yes there's two exercises we've completed that's two exercises that you've been trying to rest in the middle of that is a no-go do i need to make this any more clear get your head on straight and focus and do what is expected of you you've been in the program for a month and yet you still continue to try to push the envelope this is an integrity issue i'm not going to tolerate any more do you understand yes you fella if you try to cheat or you try to shortchange something you are done okay yes pull up bars it's our job to screen these guys and integrity is huge it doesn't matter if you can do a thousand sit-ups if they're not good sit-ups you got it yes you fella about the bar knock them out five good ones all the way down we all have to have the right integrity to get the job done you know you go out there and make a situation worse you know they can get hurt and these guys have to go home every night we all have families the reason i'm doing this is so that we get our heads in game if we're out there racing after a fisherman i want that to strike fear in the hearts of my guys we need to get [Applause] you there that there was one individual who was unconscious on the boat i jumped over and killed the engine couldn't really get a pulse on him he wasn't breathing my main focus was trying to help this guy out [Music] you all had to pass swimming recently right i'm captain jill hester i'm the commanding officer of the coast guard cutter sherman we've come up here to do a patrol for the 17th coast guard district and our job is going to be enforcing fisheries and doing search and rescue as it's necessary if we're out there racing after a fisherman who when they tell us they're going into the gumby suits i want that to strike fear in the hearts of my guys we need to get there i told the boson have you ever done this he said oh i've done gumby suit swims i said well i challenge you i bet you i'm better all right 10 on this side is on my team the 10 on that side is on the captain's team yeah [Applause] remember the reason we're doing this we need to be able to trust this gear and our guys need to know that they can survive and i also want them to know at the end of the day we really want to stay on this boat keep this boat afloat see on the beach [Music] that's one of the reasons i'm doing this is so that we get our hands in game and if we ever get the call we're putting on our gumbies and i want you guys to be just as concerned as you are for your own safety i want you to be that concerned about the fisherman who's putting on his gun because he thinks he's going down [Applause] [Music] oh well clearly the captain won was anybody surprised i think the boson threw it though he's more fit than i am let's uh let's help our shipmates all right all right guys here we go [Applause] all right gather around for a second the point of this drill you have to have some fun that's a good thing let's also learn to trust our equipment to see how it works and when we hear the call that a fisherman's going into a gumby they're going to be out in the middle of the bering sea which is another 10 degrees colder than this so imagine how scared you'd be outside of land and your boat's going down and they put out the call of the coast guard saying we're done in our gumbies that's why we're here that's why we're so everybody old sherman is this many thousand miles all right i trust my gear more than i did before anybody else all right good job both teams all right all righty guys [Music] lawson you are ready to go pt yes sir you gotta catch all your stuff up and get you up to date okay we have airmen here going through pre-training i've been assigned uh airman lawson's mentor all right you're up he's had some bumps in the road so he needs to have the right guy mentor him i think the senior person and yeah i'm looking forward to it how many pedos mostly start kick them out 10 of them my name is brett lawson i want to be ast aviation survival technician the reason i joined the coast guard is to become a rescue swimmer and have that opportunity to save someone's life boston let's go hi best moisture step that's integrity back down integrity's important the coast guard because if you're not doing the right thing at the right time somebody's going to die we're the end-all be-all you know we're the last chain of this person's survival [Music] we interest why is honesty important what what's our main job as absolute technicians what's our main job main job you don't know what our main job is you guys rescue swimmer is probably five percent of our job kids maintain equipment okay what kind of equipment yes your parachutes what's the name of that stuff um you better find that out you better find information you better run and ask an ast right now uh go find it what's our main job lawson if you don't know that week four we got problems that's 95 of our job good god week four lawson here is learning about integrity you know if he's not fit in a mold he'll be gone no pastor mercy week four you know what our main job is wait i know where it's at i had to find something close to moisture is a pyrotechnics what it's in the top block somewhere what's our main job what's it say inspections remember this line can you radiation life support okay back upstairs as an ast our main job is what aviation life support aviation survival technician i don't think he's gonna make it i don't think he's gonna make it i think he's got too much baggage in his head i think he's scared of the water but i say don't prove me wrong i don't make it personal i keep a professional and i want him to prove me wrong and if he does i'd be pleasantly surprised and i'll welcome him into this rate please got some work to do we had a good samaritan that pulled up to the dock said that he had passed a boat that was doing circles and he said it looked like there was somebody unconscious on board it's right over there [Music] alaska is a vast and immense state and in addition to kodiak we have units all across the state including ketchikan alaska where they are responsible for near coastal marine response catch can is the first port coming up into alaska so we get a lot of commercial fishing traffic coming through here the weather up here is pretty extreme in catch can we get lots and lots of rescues that we do here [Music] well uh my neighbor over there there's this gift going on the circle the guy laying in there i think he's dead i tried to you know i tried to i come up alongside the skiff and try to get it stopped and getting but i can't okay yeah sure yeah go get swanner [Music] we had a good samaritan that pulled up to the dock they i guess he saw that we were down there working on the boats he said that he had passed a boat that was doing circles and when he tried to get close to it he said it looked like there was somebody unconscious on board and it was within 500 yards of the of the station here we got a first aid kit and all of those stuff yeah all right seaman cunningham came up to me and they told me that there was a boat going in circles right across from us in the narrows we got a boat crew underway [Music] it's right over there [Music] the boat that we went out to uh investigate today was approximately three to four hundred yards actually off the station itself on pennic island when we came alongside we could see that there was one individual who was unconscious on the boat and unfortunately his engine was jammed all the way over so his boat was just making sharp really tight circles to the right side there so how to make the decision on whether or not i was going to let him run into the rocks or you know try to take that extra effort take the hit on the 25 today came alongside took the hit seema veneta made a great throw with one of our alongside lines that happened to snag one of the bits on the forward part of the boat and after that we pretty much tied up the boat to us as fast as possible i jumped over and killed the engine he was unconscious couldn't really get a pulse on him he wasn't breathing i just started doing cpr baker just took us right back to the base i grabbed the emt kit and the oxygen tank and started administering oxygen we're coming across uh seaman venetta and petty officer forrest we're letting me know you know the condition of the individual and let me know that he wasn't breathing that he didn't have a pole so that kind of put it in my mind that i need to get back to the station as fast as possible but still maintaining a safe speed so i'm not throwing them around so that they can do their job properly [Music] we just had a team down there ready to meet them because crew of three on a boat you know you're doing cpr you're taking care of the person and you need other people there to help them we got emc in route yes when we got back i continued doing cpr smbn baker got on the aed attached it to him which sends a shock to help revive the guys [Music] we were putting everything we had into it doing a proper cpr make sure the aed was hooked up properly and so you know you can't be performing cpr while trying to analyze to use the aed so just having those those down times in between performing cpr you know and just trying your hardest you know you're wearing out so fast but you don't you never wanted to just give up because you're just so focused on trying to get this guy you know better and help him out [Music] we carried litter up with a member on it for the emts all right you got it loaded them into the ambulance uh the doors closed and it's their case now that's a good thing the coast guard's here they knew what to do immediately and they did it and uh i think it only took them two attempts to to get the boat stabilized and secured alongside and and then their people right on board yeah it was pretty impressive really i thought i love the coast guard airman lawson has had some demons as i say in training in the pool he uh definitely fears it and uh we're gonna see where he's at today we're gonna go to the pool and see what he's made of yeah let's go ready go now this training is more about the mental side physically we can make anybody in the rescue swimmer but mentally it's wherever meets the road that's where it's at [Music] what's going on airman lawson's in the pool and uh he's doing a 500 yard swim and all of a sudden he's uh freaking having a seizure out there you know i don't know what's going on i jump in we get him out me and chief all right what lost what shoulder injury have you what is this it's my right one the one that's been occurring okay since before you got in the program i got in the program that i heard it again in this program let me ask you this did you disclose this injury to us uh no you've hit it from us i know i read your medical questionnaire yeah i never set a headache let's go he's got an injury reoccurring injury over the past year year and a half i don't know and uh never really told us about it so he's going to get evaluated and see what it's all about get him healthy then we'll worry about what's going to go on later with them tell me what happened to pool awesome it's just swimming about 500 and um swimming i just felt it started getting a little tight but i just thought it was just muscle and then a swimming and then it just popped and then i just stopped bring my stroller over to swim take my stroke and my shoulder pop gave out and i buckled in the water grabbed my shoulder and couldn't swim anymore this is definitely a game changer right now for you i'm sure you're wearing this let's see what's going on and it's up to chief to make decisions the potential request for amber lawson obviously would be a um you know having to drop the program due to medical reasons you know that's that's probably my mind right now call me up when you [Music] it's suspected that there's a hunter out there come to hell of it can you come down what is that right there you guys see that hot spot [Music] so just bring it over there captain that need a cadillac that's the cadillac of atvs right there today we've got uh captain uh bill deal our skipper myself a number of the other officers um and we're gonna show them the trails and uh they're fairly new to uh kodiak we've been here myself as my eighth year i guess and skipper is about seven or eight years as well so it's fun ride it's 18 miles i think 17 or 18 miles in is that right skipper and then uh we go we're gonna go and do some fishing we might see some bears it is uh my first atv trip up here but you know i grew up doing a lot of kind of off-road dirt bike type of stuff so it's not going to be totally out of the norm it's a fairly benign trail that we're going back on it's mostly to get there to uh to fish it'll be good should get growing let's go welcome [Music] a lot of our uh rescues are medevac type of rescues we have some hunting accidents some hiking accidents hypothermia and actually go out there and understand you know how slippery shale is or how how powerful water is for the young officers to see that i think is just invaluable and it helps give them a better understanding of what the folks that we're rescuing face whoa nice fish [Music] [Applause] [Music] we have the best job in the world stationed out here in kodiak all the search and rescue and flying we get to do and then in days like this you get to come out on a nice sunny day in october catch some salmon it's beautiful to come out here on your downtime and enjoy the outdoors kodiak style how's that for beautiful alaskan salmon we got a great bunch of folks at the air station and any time we get a chance to get out and do something together especially something as fun as taking the four wheelers out and catching a few fish it's pretty awesome [Music] cardiac operation okay we had a call from district uh they had gotten a transmission on a personal locator beacon on a raspberry island it's suspected that there's a hunter out there and he activated it and that sends a signal which broadcasts his position and every time that signal is received and transmitted the coast guard gets a position so they got about a six mile triangle that the helicopter crew is going to search in jay simmons came found me told us we have a call the first indication that we had all we was is we knew it was coming from a personal locator beacon we knew where it was coming from it's coming from an island north of kodiak and we know it's multiple gps positions we don't have any other kind of indication of what you're dealing with if it's somebody who's lost if it's somebody who's cold if somebody's had to run in with wildlife you don't know what it is so we're like okay let's go check it costay out 6006. we are airborne from air station kodiak we are enrolled through a raspberry island roger alaska is a great environment to be able to use all the new tools we have in the helicopter and so this is a perfect example of one night where we can use absolutely everything we have on the helicopter including the direction finding equipment night vision goggles infrared camera radar all of our radios we're using everything just to find these guys [Music] the initial gps position is sitting up on a mountain ridge a mountain that goes up to about 1500 feet and we're navigating between sea level and 500 feet we're going to work our way up this mountain towards the gps position looking for any kind of signs of distress we still don't know we're looking for but of course it's at night it's raining we got low visibility and we need to find their heat signature using our infrared sensors there's a spot right there [Music] that's the animal more than likely yeah [Music] every heat signature could potentially be the guy that you're looking for we're picking up all sorts of animals come down there can you come down what is that right there oh you guys seen that hot spot but about where do you think it is there it is right there oh yeah smart physician uh that could be a person [Music] we have a call all we knew was coming from a personal locator beacon we knew where it was coming from it's coming from an island north of kodiak and we know it's multiple gps positions you don't have any other kind of indication of what you're dealing with if it's somebody who's lost if it's somebody who's cold if somebody's had to run in with wildlife you don't know what it is so we're like okay let's go check it out [Music] come down a little bit can you come down what is that right there you guys seen that hot spot oh yeah smart physician could be a person there's all sorts of wildlife on raspberry island was picking up elk and bears and it's like is that a person is that a purse we'd fly over it again and um nope it's a it's a deer or an elk looking for any signs of stress or anything at all [Music] there it is i got something i got yep there's a fire right there roger i got [Music] we have located the uh pob uh we're not able to contact people yet they're on the on the ground over there's basically training control okay it's the pov and uh one person there roger nice job guys there's a couple of level spots here we circled it a few times had a good crew discussion about how we're going to get in there and we're able to do what's called a rough area landing and a tricky part about a rough area landing is especially with tall the tall tundra grass that you find a lot up here in alaska is you don't know if there's potholes you know if there's rocks or anything that might damage the helicopter or that you could potentially get stuck in even the mud i got the landing zone in sight it's gonna start to creep in we just did a real slow descent and uh you know my crew has got uh got his head poking out the door giving me commands easy down hold for looking good there's a pyramid instructions the guy's over at our nine o'clock all right i see him over there eric uh you know his job is to get out there assess the survivors and give us a call back and that's exactly what he's gonna do he's gonna give us a call and we're waiting for you know hey what's going on how many people do we have what condition are they in are they lost are they cold are they injured what do we have i walked over and first thing in my mind is i saw two guys i was thinking oh boy they hit the butt because a friend hasn't come back so we're gonna be up all night you know having to try to locate somebody who doesn't have a plb on them but turned out one of the individuals is the individual who hit the button and he was the one who's in trouble he was cool he was shivering and after talking to him he didn't want to leave so he assured me that he was fine rescue six zero zero six risk trimmer roger we got uh two uh individuals over here uh the one that hit the watch and he was in a bad shape and hypothermia uh but he's warmed up and um he seems to be thinking he's going to do better here and uh he's not need to leave tonight hypothermia is a tricky one because unfortunately the hypothermic victims who have been found in the wilderness have often been found naked because the body and the brain will put tricks on you thinking that you're actually much warmer than you really are that guy's still uh just like shivering or he's like shaking his arms and stuff like he's cold let's just uh have a good talk with swimmer because i know from a medical standpoint like people who right they're good aren't right hey eric sir good once over as far as his medical condition you know because hypothermia people have bad judgments and if he says he's good he might not be good i asked the guy said are you sure you're okay you know if you're cold you're miserable you know you need to be able to warm up um you know otherwise it's just gonna get worse and worse he said yeah i'd like to go so i got on the radio and called pilots and said hey listen these guys both had a change of heart and they want to come with us now you walk a fine line when you have to uh either convince people they do or they don't need help you know yeah stuff they're right they're coming to the weeds [Music] roger yeah we cleared them all they got four off them we cleared a wall all right thanks ready for takeoff sir all right you're clear clear up [Music] let's go ahead and arrange the ambulance to meet us when we get back what do you got we got our guy up front here we landed here in the the individual who was cold uh went went in the ambulance and then the other other guy stayed and he had a plan uh to you know get to a hotel or you know know where his buddies at so he could check on his friend the coast guard here in alaska you know they really are the best the best i would call them the varsity team especially when it comes to search and rescue and you know me and my friend are definitely a testament to that we're back here safe and uh everything is is pretty much good to go because of these guys how you doing how are you doing all right scott hamilton vince hanson nice to meet you i was pilot appreciate it all right glad you guys are back safe when we talked to him they said uh the guy who hit the button his core temperature was 93 degrees so he's he was cold that makes feel good that it wasn't just because someone was uncomfortable but because they were really in trouble [Music] when i finally got the news for being a medically disenrolled it was very devastating because this is my dream it's what i want to do coming into the coast guard was just to be a rescue swimmer and now that i can't do that right away i have to look at other options for the time being until maybe i can go back into the program due to the forecasted amount of time that we're taking for recovery and then to get back to where he's fit for full duty to train properly it just wasn't an option to let him remain in the program [Music] i think it was a great experience i think i learned a lot the asts the rescue swimmers what they do is it's incredible and i wish i could be a part of that someday [Music]

Channel: DangerTV

Views: 201,899

Rating: 4.8641629 out of 5

Keywords: Coast Guard, Coast Guard Alaska, US Coast Guard, United States Coast Guard, US Coast Guard Alaska, United States Coast Guard Alaska, Coast Guard rescue, full episodes of Coast Guard Alaska, reality tv show Coast Guard Alaska, full episodes, reality tv, danger, dangertv, danger tv, Danger, DangerTV, Danger TV, Coast Guard search & rescue, search & rescue, search & rescue helicopter, helicopter, search & rescue boat, boat, boats at sea, ships sinking, ships, helicopter rescue, boats

Id: Fb5ZT_lkJTY

Length: 42min 33sec (2553 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 06 2020