Search Dog Helps the Coast Guard find a Missing Girl! | Coast Guard Alaska | Full Episode

[Music] at air station sitka the search is on [Music] the coast guard races to save a truck driver pinned under his rig sounds like this guy's in pretty bad shape the team rushes to a fisherman struggling with deadly seizures everything we do every second matters and when a teenager goes missing in the woods it's up to the coast guard to bring her home the sooner we can find her the better because you just never know in this country what's going to happen [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] [Applause] my name is dan mcdevitt i'm a flight mechanic today we're getting ready to go out for a normal patrol we ended up getting the call and we went up to the op center all right guys brief here quick so we're on the same sheet of music so they've got poor protection 13 year old girl went on a hike apparently by herself sometime last night before sunset sector's still getting the details the uh the troopers are running the case so they've been down there since yesterday evening and they've got some people on the ground looking forward but they're looking for more bodies more people to be out searching so that's why they're trying to get sycamon rescued they're also trying to get a dog so we may have a dog coming on the flight with us what i found out so far is that a young girl went on a hike up in the hills behind the town of port protection which is a really small basically a cove with just a handful of homes in a small community so she went up in a hike sunday afternoon and really hasn't been seen since so at this point she's already spent one cold wet night out in the woods my name is tyler i'm with sika mountain rescue and this is my golden retriever cali she's an air scent dog and so she basically can pick up raft particles that are put off by a missing person and follow clues that we can't so yeah we're gonna give her a chance to work today hey puppy [Music] [Music] so this morning by the time sick of mountain rescue arrived here we had already been on the ramp and the head was turning so the dog was definitely a little apprehensive coming into the rotor arc but once it got inside the cabin she got comfortable and i think she was okay with it [Music] there's we headed out of sitka with two members of sika mountain rescue on board and a search dog so weather has turned out to be pretty good we were able to make it in an hour down to port protection once we landed in port protection i went and walked the two second mountain guys out poor protection it's a small little town very small and all the houses are connected by this uh intricate boardwalk and so i walked up the board to walk with them they were talking to the townspeople people had already been out searching sticking out rescue walls getting all the information they could to do their job so the trail to the lake is at this trail this will take you up to the water tower okay and then the trail heads off from there and uh maybe we can get jake jacob jimmy's this is her father and uh he's been all over back over there okay so survival gear survival training she has no training really she's got levi's on a black t-shirt a brown um hoodie and rubber boots is she experienced with this area no she's from nevada she's been here six months basically you're just looking for the girl fortunately all the information they needed was excellent information for us also so i hung back gathered that info and then i went back to the helicopter with it and we pulled up and we began our our portion of the search all right we're good sector rescue 3-0 flat option five six two zero north one three three three six west actively searching over so as i'm looking out the door during our search i'm looking relatively straight down and uh kind of combing you know going doing up and down diagonally trying to cover as much in my frame of view as i can and go over it as many times as i can as the helicopters moving along it's so thick barely see through the trees you just can't see the ground if she's got herself to an exposed spot where we can see her we can find her a lot quicker you know my concern for this young lady was that she was in a place where she needed to get out of pretty quick you know just the elements you know the weather was terrible and it was cold it was probably hovering right around 38 degrees the whole time you know and if you're cold and wet you know it's hypothermic can set him pretty quick smr from rescue 3-0 we're thinking you could give us a position where uh the dogs might have lost it so we can start doing a parallel search there over [Music] [Music] here [Music] [Applause] [Music] we're going to start out here looking on the infrared [Music] for a case like this one of the huge tools we have to work with is the eoir it has the infrared on it and it can pick up the slightest little heat signal uh hopefully you want to mark it yeah come back around to the left uh what i had was a six o'clock and a mark mark mark so in the woods right to the left somewhere here hopefully if it hurts you would never run up on the road unless he's hurt yeah there we go up the deer unfolded when you're searching over terrain you know it's as rough as it was down there poor protection you're looking through you know with the ir camera even visibly with your naked eye outside the door everything happens a lot slower you know you don't want to miss it you know like when you're over the water and you're doing your typical coast guard mission over watering you know you can move a lot faster and you can scan a lot broader area you know because things in the water pretty much stand out if they're there um you know on the ground it's everything is much slower pace do you see anything on that bench yeah i'm not i'm not seeing anything we've been out here flying for about eight hours at this point on the ground they found signs at first so we know she's out here in the woods walking around hopefully she's not hurt and it's just a matter of somebody laying eyes on her all right well there's our 2500 guys okay i think it's time to go home one of the worst feelings you can have as a coast guard pilot is to have to leave seeing knowing that there's somebody still there that needs to be rescued but it's the classic command decision that you have to make we call it a bingo fuel your bingo fuel is the fuel that you're not going to burn past because you need it to safely get wherever you're going to get after that and when we get to that point we've got to go regardless of whether where we are in the search [Music] so leaving the scene knowing that most likely this girl is going to be spending a second night out there it's never uh it's never a good feeling it's not you know you're it's going away on you you know it's going to it's going to be with you you know i'm sure when i'm going to bed tonight and i'm uh i'm in my you know comfortable bed with my warm sheets she's going to pop into my head and we'll just you know you just hope that somebody's able to find her [Music] this morning we've got a first light surge going out for a 13 year old who was lost in the woods for two days we've had a cruise try to search yesterday and find her with no success and today we're going to go help search port protection as soon as we can find her the better because you just never know in this country what's going to happen go ahead i've got an update on the case they've located the subject everyone's been airborne for about two minutes and we just heard on the radio that uh this girl's been found and she's okay it's a great feeling she's got people with her there now that can you know get her some water try to warm her up but she's still probably in the middle of nowhere so we know we need to get there quickly and we'd like to get her on board and get her you know to a hospital or to ems tell him we are 20 minutes out [Music] so when we land it's actually pretty soggy ground so we have to keep some power on the aircraft kind of half on the ground and half flying noel goes out to uh to meet with the ground search party to assess her condition [Music] as i came up you could tell that she had been out in the woods for a while her face was all dirty and you could tell that she had just been trying to survive the ground crew had put some fresh clothes on her i found out her dad was actually part of the ground party there as well so i wanted to get michaela into the helicopter so i can evaluate her better they're showing you already well i'm still getting situated back here we finally got both of them in the helicopter we cranked on the heat and kayla was doing good at this time you know i was a little worried about her uh dehydration and and weakness so but we needed to get airborne okay [Music] as we got airborne then i started evaluating michael a little bit more patient's uh stable right now doing well we're just trying to hydrate we needed to get her to a clinic because i knew after two days i was worried about if she had drank some water you know what kind of bacteria maybe there could be giardia or different things like that that can show up later on so i needed to have them evaluated a little bit better my name is makayla mcroberts and i live in fort protection and sunday i went to take a hike up to a lake behind port protection well after a while the rain started coming down a little bit more so i went into the woods and i thought i found the path for a second got lost so i kind of jumped a creek climbed up a hill sat down by this one tree that kind of was hollowed out slightly where i could fit my head and shoulders in it that's how much was hollowed out and stayed there that night it's humbling to hear uh how michaela's spend her nights out there you know uh soaked from trying to cross a creek um you know just trying anything she could to keep that warmth yeah it's definitely amazing i'm a kind of in awe of uh of her survival instinct and the way that she survived out there sector 603-8 we are originally i can't express how proud we are in the coast guard about you know how she survived and it's an incredible story for all of us to take back and say here's a little 13 year old girl who not only spent one night but two nights drenched wet southeast alaska had to wield or survive and she did it [Music] we're in port protection alaska we're waiting for michaela to get off of the plane part of the community is here waiting gathering to greet her and this is going to be the first time that we see her since her adventure [Music] [Applause] [Music] how are you pretty good my name is jim mcroberts i'm michaela's father what she went through is not too many people would have been able to make it when i saw her smile on the nap it was the happiest day of my life the whole reason why i went out of the woods [Music] what you do to get a dog to everybody who came out to look for me i would just like to say you guys were like awesome all right this is the one day i'm going to be hugging people so these people from all over the state when something like this happens in our communities everyone puts their feet forward to help the volunteer rescue people the coast guard they go out in horrid conditions and help people when no one else could ever go there i would like to commend the coast guard and thank them for saving michaela's life thank you blueberry leaves and a spider what i just got an urgent call for a medevac for a 50 year old male who's pinned by a log truck we're expecting crush injuries internal bleeding any broken bones head injury stuff that you know can't wait for a few minutes we need to get him out of there right away [Music] today we're working with the school district and teaching uh seventh graders uh some water survival methods uh we do it every year with them it's a great time kids actually get to play in the water with all of our rescue equipment uh we just teach them survival skills how to get in and out of life rafts all right so this is what you're going to do you are going to go ahead and get up on your suit you're going to sit on the wall with your feet in the feed in the water my name is jared huray i'm a pet shirt here at blackstone middle school we are here at the blasphemy pool um doing the amzi program the amazing program is through the second school district we have amg instructors here we have the coast guard instructors here helping the 7th grade students learn about cold water safety if you see having to see an airplane or a helicopter above you what do you want to do to make yourself more visible to the air okay you're going to want to kick and make white water so when i say go i want big white water ready set go we have four stations here we have emergencies a lot of commercial uh fishermen here they all are required to have these on board so we're giving them a glimpse of what they are we have a station is pfds personal quotation devices so then step off we have a station where students are trying to experience getting themselves into a boat from the water which is something that could possibly happen in a situation want to give them a glimpse of how hard it is in calm water to try to get their their body weight into a boat grab under their arms there you go that's it and the last station is kind of a fun station with the rescue swimmers um they're here to show them what they do in the coast guard [Music] we think it's really important teach them survival skills from a very early age because in southeast alaska you're just surrounded by water and no matter where you go you're in water and it's not just hawaii water where it's beautiful and warm this is dangerous water at 40 degrees sometimes even lower so the kids know immediately that although the ocean is your friend it gives you food and stuff but it's also very dangerous for me and a life expectancy you know with your clothes on is only 10-15 minutes at the most and a child is even less so for the kids to realize how to get into survival suits how to get into a life raft if one comes to them not to panic when the coast guard comes and saves them it's lifelong skills that they'll always have so how do you feel i feel um safe safe yeah so if i push you water you think you come back up yes you sure yes let's find out okay ready one yeah two three that's awesome it was cool to have the rescue teachers because i mean the coast guard it's their line of work they know how to teach us so next time i'm in the water in that kind of situation i'll know what to do they're definitely important people to have around and i'm glad that we um alaskans have them because they're our only kind of help when we're out there in the water anybody else want to get put in this it's great the kids love it and you know they're going to go home and they're going to talk about this for two or three days because they got to climb into a basket or the rescue swimmer tried to dunk me you know and that's what we like it's you learn through fun [Music] we're here at air station sick in the operation center i just got an urgent call from medevac for a 50 year old male who's pinned by a log truck at prince of wales island [Music] when i see the patient he looked a little bit scared as anybody would be in that situation sounds like this guy's in pretty bad shape when i hear about a patient who's having seizures i'm thinking about airway difficulties did he bite his tongue is there something that's going to kill him because he's seizing [Music] we're here at air station sick in the operation center i just got an urgent call from medevac for a 50 year old male who's pinned by a log truck at uh prince of wales island internal injuries do you have lots of fluids yeah like two bags yeah whatever you think i mean if this guy's crushed is that enough do you want to go get more while we're starting up i'll go grab a couple extra bags i guess okay they got him out from underneath the log truck and uh he's on his way to cloak clinic right now prince of wales is a remote location here in alaska where they only have a clinic available so they're going to need to take him to a place with a higher level of care which is in ketchikan we should be arriving in one hour lieutenant david berkey here at air station sitka as soon as we got in the aircraft we got updated that the patient is in or out to cloak we're going to land at cloak airport and meet the ambulance there take them to ketchikan and the weather's good i'm gonna cut as many corners as i can yeah so i guess we're meeting us at the airport my name is noel hutton i'm a coast guard rescue swimmer knowing that they having an ambulance gives us more information from the ems personnel about what's going on with the patient what they're going to need from us with the patient so we can get that equipment ready that we have on the helicopter hook him up and hopefully get him stabilized three eight sector go ahead sector uh just gives us some updated information on the patient uh let's figure out what equipment we're gonna need freehand sector roger standby my name is hsu christina mcrobert the concerns that we have with this medevac is that we don't really have much information but we're expecting crush injuries internal bleeding any broken bones head injury worst case scenario breathing problems um with his airway or anything with his lungs stuff that you know can't wait for a few minutes that we need to get them out of there for right away for approach ready for approach look carlos when we get out we'll have some litter get out put it together put all that over there uh when we get to cloak we're the first ones there i call district to get an update district doesn't really have any information because the ambulance is in route and they don't have coms with the ambulance so it's kind of like hey what are we going to get when it gets here patient could be coding patient could walk to the aircraft i don't know the ambulance is arriving and as soon as they get here we are going to hop in and assess our patient [Music] when i see the patient i notice that he looked a little bit scared um as anybody would be in that situation but we just kind of talked to him let him know what we were doing just finding out the injuries uh seeing what they were and just prioritizing from there [Music] sounds like this guy's in pretty bad shape so we do a good evaluation of the lungs both lungs sound clear um my biggest concern right now is maybe have some internal bleeding we had to establish an iv and we had to make sure that he was fully good to go before we left and uh wasn't working he was there the pulling back he didn't like getting an iv as christina tried to put an iv in he didn't really like it and pulled back a little bit and pulled the iv out that she had started but it's a pretty critical thing so i suggested that we maybe we can't get an iv in let's put a interosseous in and what this does is it allows us to drill into the bone and that way we can administer iv fluid through the bone marrow one thing that we can do is numb the area that the needle's going to go into that only numbs the surface area so the patient really didn't feel going in but he did feel it going into the bone just right after that the doctor from clowak was able to get another iv in his right hand and we were able to get fluids on board that way as well so now that we have two ivs going i feel a little more comfortable taking this this patient all right here they count carlos at this time we're going to load the patient onto the helicopter i like to get them set up on the monitor get them ready to go before we take off [Music] okay we gave him the two milligrams of morphine uh before we left and that helped a little bit i believe i'm a little more concerned right now uh as we got going his io iv bag wasn't dripping very well i'm not sure if something's clogging it and so i'm trying to figure this situation and figure out what's going on here what's wrong oh i can't get his i o [Applause] on route the pilots get hold of the ems that's going to be meeting us there and see if maybe they can let the hospital know what's going on or just ems just kind of give everybody a heads [Music] up [Music] [Applause] all right good spo too how's he doing talk to him his eyes are closed he's okay christine if you want to walk out i'll get your ball ready to take out until gets caught out here went over and briefed everybody told them what was going on uh they were all really nice guys really excited to get the patient and get him to better care and um yeah noel disconnected everything that he could and it was a good successful transport [Music] i think as a rescue swimmer you know my own philosophy is training the way you fight i have a guy that's crushed you know under a logging truck uh tomorrow i might have somebody that's sinking in a boat we have to you know go pull them out of the water you just never know what you're gonna get so to keeping up on your skills keeping up on current on your ems skills as best as you can you know that's what's going to help you in the long run [Music] my name is david snodgrass i live in kauffman cove i drive a log truck for a living i was working on a log truck and things went terribly wrong and it ended up on top of me i had three broken ribs on my left side and i just bruised from head to toe and i suffered from lack of oxygen i'm pretty thankful for everybody if it wasn't been for everybody pulling together i i wouldn't be here well the coast guard is probably the most valuable asset the island's got when all else fails that's when the coast guard's called the star alarm just went off and we're responding to a 45 year old man who's had a seizure on a fishing boat seeing that he has had a seizure everything we do every second matters [Music] you guys ready let's do it cameron cullen ast3 on top of harbor mountain chris john and i are all here because we're passionate about our jobs and we just want to know as much as we can from a rescuer standpoint and at the same time just another way to get outside and really enjoy the beautiful days out here in sitka we're going to go plant an avalanche transceiver for a practice burial scenario my name is tom matisse i'm the avalanche forecaster and emergency programs manager for the city of borough juno alaska has the highest per capita avalanche fatalities in the united states and the rescue swimmers because they have the hoist capability with the helicopters they do often perform mountain rescue scenarios so it's not only important for them to know how to stay safe in the mountains but it's important for them to know how to use the safety tools to find others in the mountains that may have compromised their own safety and been buried so what we're going to do is i've buried a couple of transceivers move down the hill until you get a signal when you get a signal vocalized and then you can dig okay so the avalanche headed this direction up the hill pretty much straight up the hill the last point you saw the person was 15 yards on the other side of that tree right there avalanche an avalanche transceiver is a unit that's sending and receiving signals if somebody in a party gets buried the party members can turn the other units to receive and they can use them to home in on their partner and isolate where that person is at so they can dig them out effectively and efficiently in a very short period of time 25 what are you over there chris 25. stop hold on let's start with correct habits i want you getting your probe out and you getting your shovel out so that we can get to them quicker i'll get the shovel out 16 8. tom our instructor he's his rule is that you need to be able to find an individual who's been buried in an avalanche within three minutes using your transceivers we can understand the speed aspect of this very well most of our job is all getting someplace as fast as possible a lot of ours take place in the water and if we don't get to them as fast as possible with them in the water they're dead so show me exactly where it is and let and watch this here's let's just hold it at this level because it's snow level point three hold on right that elevation point 0.4 market now where is it right there that's how you find somebody that was awesome good job really good job it's a really good feeling when you find that beacon i thought this was going to be a very simple task you know you have a avalanche beacon and somebody who's buried also has one there's a lot of different factors that play into that and definitely humbled me today and i learned a lot so it was fun [Music] i'm lieutenant josh tabor i'm a pilot here at air station sitka and the sar alarm just went off and we're responding to a 45 year old man who's had a seizure on a fishing boat [Music] they've reported to sector juno that they're at anchor in a cove at the south end of seymour canal this is his first seizure i'm told however each subsequent seizure is more dangerous to the individual so we want to get out there as soon as we can [Music] my name is hsc aaron bonner when i hear about a patient who's having seizures i'm thinking about airway difficulties did he bite his tongue is there something that's going to kill him because he's ceasing going to seymour canal can take an hour it's basically on the waterway between petersburg and juno but for a boat that's a 12-hour transit at least so if you have somebody that's sick on your on your crew the helicopter's the perfect answer to this because we have a couple different options for mountain passes to cut across baron off island that will save a considerable amount of time [Music] the guy ambulatory or no yes sir he is ambulatory but the odds of him going into another t-shirt is very good so we're definitely not using the basket or we can wait too around scene i would rather do a letter just in case he goes into caesar again he's strapped in and he's good to go roger we're gonna start getting the uh litter set up back here my name is benton allen i'm a health services technician first class at this time we're hearing uh from the fishing vessel from the captain that uh he uh he has had another seizure um seeing that he has had a second seizure a third and fourth is very likely and that's where we come in uh to get over on scene and to hoist our rescue swimmer down and get him back up quickly that's cool nice big bow giw ready for approach and you have kept door speed it's not already [Music] ast3 cameron cullen anytime we're flying and especially hoisting it's a very dangerous evolution one of the tools we use is called a trail line and it's just a 105 foot long rope with a weight bag at the end and all that is to do is to stabilize me or whatever is being sent down to the boat so you're going to have someone on the boat that's pulling in that trail line and that's just going to keep it a nice smooth stable hoist oh he's got it in his hands that's awesome good good [Music] there are a million things that can go wrong in a hoist like this you know the boat can move unexpectedly uh the helicopter could make contact with some part of the boat there have been instances in the past where that rope can get wrapped around things on the deck and go talk and actually break and it's game over for a lot of people and the hoist and maybe we become the the rescue e at that point [Music] at this time we're hearing uh from the fishing vessel from the captain that uh he uh he has had another seizure um seeing that he has had a second seizure a third and fourth is very likely and that's where we come in uh to get over on scene and to hoist our rescue swimmer down and get him back up quickly go check his feet [Music] right when i get down to the boat and i'm looking at the victim i see he's not in the greatest shape he's had two seizures in the past two hours seizures can be very dangerous because you lose all control of your body and during those seizures he injured himself he ended up biting his tongue several times so his tongue was really swollen and there's lots of blood in there so airway become another huge issue for us [Music] we chose to hoist him back up in the the tsar medevac litter in that way if he did have another seizure he's strapped in well everything we do every second matters getting hoisted is a very vulnerable moment it's a stressful situation for them i think they're excited that we show up you know they're ready to to leave the boat and get to a hospital but at the same time you can definitely see a sense of fear you know in their eyes of the unknown [Music] as the patient's getting closer he's looking at me and he seems frightened uh there is a little blood around his mouth you can tell from where he bit his tongue i started working on getting an iv and and pushing some medication and i have the ready for pickup hold position okay taking the load when you're dealing with seizures you're definitely racing against the clock trying to get meds into the patient's system and get them to a higher level of care before it's too late [Music] is [Music] in his situation stuck on a fishing vessel for them a 12-hour boat ride from where they were to juno without the coast guard there you know there would be no hope for him the medication we pushed has helped we've got him on some oxygen um hopefully this is going to prevent any further seizures and him compromising his airway when we get there me and chief are going to make sure we deliver this patient personally to bartlett hospital emergency room hey how you feeling good okay so we take a listen to you yeah okay let's listen take some deep breaths for me my name is brett claggett once i knew the coast guard was coming i calmed down quite a bit because i knew i had the best of the best how's your tongue doing good good more but better but better i am dr mignon benjamin and we are in juno alaska at bartlett regional hospital brett could have died had he not had the coast guard bringing him in he required medication and care by a specialist so it was life-saving for the coast guard to be able to bring brett to us all right thank you ma'am sure you take care you take great care of me good when i first saw the rescue swimmer's face i knew everything was in control the coast guard watches out for you whether you're on the deck in the water or going up the basket or in the helicopter they're america's cereals coming out risking their lives to retrieve us we got a sane form we call them angels of the sky because they are [Music] you

Channel: DangerTV

Views: 392,573

Rating: 4.9147353 out of 5

Keywords: Search dog helps the coast guard find a missing girl, coast guard alaska, full episode, full episodes of coast guard alaska, coast guard search and rescue, search and rescue, search dog, search and rescue for a missing teenage girl, US Coast Guard, US Coast Guard Alaska, united states coast guard, united states coast guard alaska, Alaskan coast guard, coast guard helicopter rescue, danger, dangertv, danger tv, Danger, DangerTV, Danger TV, Alaska, Sitka Alaska, Air Station Sitka

Id: BeY2Li2nJf8

Length: 42min 33sec (2553 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 27 2020