Stranded Hiker Saved! | Coast Guard Alaska | Full Episode

in Alaska the coastguard battles the elements to rescue people from Mother Nature's perilous grip when a vessel runs aground in harsh weather the team pushes through gale force winds to reach them the wind would come up and blow down and loss around pretty good close to Air Station Kodiak the crew attempts a dangerous hoist to reach a hiker in a precarious position we have a very high really important to do yes know where to go go ahead make sure we're doing this parade and I see fog will not stop the Coast Guard from reaching a seriously ill patient in a remote Alaskan village [Applause] the vast Alaskan wilderness a place where beauty is cloaked by danger here every day the highly trained men and women of the u.s. Coast Guard risk their lives to save others America's deadliest waters are protected by Coast Guard Alaska [Music] my name is tena Christina cinema file it up here at Air Station Sitka we just received a call for an urgent medevac from a 72 year old male who's suffering from respiratory issues Boone is a small isolated island the only way to get there is by float plane or by ferry or in this case by helicopter patient was pretty critical so we wanted to make sure that we got there as soon as possible the only problems this route puts us in small valleys and narrow valleys could be very challenging play got limited visibility somewhere around two miles and we've got snow showers in the area [Music] my name is David white ast3 at air station sitka patient had pneumonia he was breathing on his own but his vitals were diminishing patient meets lots of oxygen that's going to be his his best medicine weather's pretty pretty bad today this is gonna be the only means of transportation for this this member to get off the island because commercial asset can't get in there and goons and unprepared surface it doesn't have a hard stand runway so we're gonna be landing in a ball field [Music] alright guy he goes pretty o'clock low clear the power line two feet of decking we did get a little bit of a dust cloud but we cleared that pretty quick got on deck we're expecting to see an ambulance but the sheriff told us that he's going to give us a ride to the clinic living in the remote villages here in Alaska there's a lot of challenges especially when it comes to medical issues leaving their power sources unreliable they had experienced several power outages that day [Music] he was and some pretty serious respiratory distress his o2 saturation levels were going down his body's not absorbing as much o2 as it needs my main concern was to keep Oh to on him and the monitors vitals the hospital didn't have any portable o2 bottles so we had to use ours before we have patient loaded up and we are about to head your way over I look back and saw the patient's family and I can tell they're very worried but they relieved that he's on his way off to get some higher care that's good when the swimmer came back the biggest thing we're looking at is the weather we want to know what the weather's gonna be in route we had just come through there and it was doable but the weather's always guaranteed to change so you can you can have the best plan and the best idea of what the weather is and the only thing you're guaranteed is it's gonna be different if you guys love it over here ready for takeoff on my first priority of business was I hooked up the o2 sat on his finger he was borderline to where I would need to put the back of valve mask on him and breathe for him [Music] we gotta be cautious on our departure we're traveling down at waterway with 3,000 foot mountains the winds will actually funnel through these mountains and create down washes that's what's creating all the turbulence that we got today you can lose 200 feet in a blink of an eye we need to go as fast as we can we're running low on oxygen when I was reassessing his vitals I checked the PSI on the o2 tank and it was low I had only one bottle left and I knew we had about another 30 minutes of flight time left if this patients unable to get oh - he's gonna go downhill very fast when I say go while I was checking its vitals I had the flight mech count his respirations we were gonna be cutting it very close possibly even running out of o2 okay we're kind of running through oxygen bottles quicker than we had expected they were down to the last bottle and that they were burning through that model pretty quick it's absolutely critical that this patient remains on High Flow o2 our o2 tanks have 2,000 psi in them and it was under 200 psi and that comes down to minutes as soon as we shut down the ambulance pulled right up next to the helicopter we loaded him and handed him off to sick I AMS here in Alaska there's a chain of survivability we cannot afford to be complacent we have to treat each search and rescue case for worst case scenario and we do that very well it makes me very proud to be part of this team my name is Joyce Frank Donnie deck jr. is my father I'm just really grateful for Coast Guard they can come out when it's life or death one of the people that are so sick and they they have no other way of getting to a hospital right now all you can do is just hope and pray that everything turns out and just be there for him [Music] thirty-five year old guy walked away from camp at 1:00 yesterday afternoon sitting right here knowing that the person had been out there for hours in wet cold temperatures with only sweatshirt and a pair of jeans we wanted to move quickly to get out there because in that situation somebody could easily be hypothermic we have a very high risk choice to do he has nowhere to go okay so let's make sure we're doing this right [Music] [Music] my ast3 white Air Station Sitka Alaska it's a first day of our field portion of the cold weather survival school cold-weather survival training is very important for the Coast Guard here in Alaska there's lots of remote villages and the crew just with one of them for a medevac something could go wrong and they have to do a immediate landing and they may be there for 12 hours to 48 hours you never know it's places out here are still remote you have to be able to take care of themselves until help can arrive [Music] where you want to go find your shelter I advise to get a good show for started burning daylight though before we started running around do we actually want to kind of think oh we're gonna do first I'm commander Ward Sandlin I'm the commanding officer at Coast Guard Air Station Sitka so the first exercise today is to find a place to build our shelter we learned in the classroom what we're supposed to look for what we're not what we're supposed to avoid we'll take this way you guys want to go that way or is that sound good it sounds great but you guys fine oh wow the only problem with this is this tree right here oh yeah look at the top yeah mmm some place else that's a darn good spot we could build a pretty sweet little shelter out here you want to make a keel mark there Eddie wants the built I don't care above the bill [Music] we're gonna start to build the frame and get us hopefully a waterproof shelter for tonight the key to this just really divide and conquer it's gonna be dark here before we know it and we don't want to sleep it out in the open it's pretty important that we we can get it a watertight as soon as possible we're losing daylight quickly it's always raining it's always cold so they're number one danger by far as hypothermia I'm sit on the ground and I can feel the cold yep which one was it anything we could just wedge under there yeah a big log oh all right now it's not long enough hey Chris beat it all right ready ready it's so close this team's working great together I mean everybody's getting along everybody's still happy you know of course it's the first day and then we'll see if the if the shelter holds over the night especially the winds kick up hold it perfect we almost had a catastrophic failure victory is ours it's been a good first day but right now we're having sustained gale force winds and it's raining it's gonna be cold [Music] just got called in last night the decision was to do a first leg search for this guy yes they're not very well-equipped right now for a survival situation first thing I hear is that we've got a missing hiker down near you yak Bay so the first thing that I'm thinking of is it's fairly close there's a fairly high mountain is up to about 3000 feet deep valleys rivers bridges we have four members of the Kodiak Island search-and-rescue team coming with us to help us with the land search 35 year old guy walked away from camp at 1:00 yesterday afternoon a couple of tents there he's familiar with the area but they said you get cotton clothing right didn't they bring here mother nature up here in Kodiak is unpredictable it's just a bad place to be in the rain essentially wearing cotton clothes you know a missing hiker case he just hope they have some kind of signalling equipment lat/long of content that's probably where we're gonna start our search see what's going on potentially split these guys up into two and two or you guys can organize it weather is not great pretty good rain out there right now with some miss we got a 1 degree temperature dew point spread which means pods creep up in any one of these coves any question and all this that's good lieutenant mark Ison mh-65 here at Air Station Kodiak knowing that the person had been out there for hours in wet cold temperatures with only a sweatshirt and a pair of jeans we wanted to move quickly to get out there because in that situation somebody could easily be hypothermic [Music] [Music] so we've got pretty good position data on where this hikers tent and camping equipment was he's also out there with a companion so the first thing we want to do is touch base with them and hopefully you know he filed a plan with his friend basically telling us what direction he was hiking in when we arrived on scene we easily spotted the yellow tent where the the two personnel that were out there were staying one of which was now lost there was also a large field next to it which we decided we could land in okay good at that point we dropped off the the four Kodiak search and rescue personnel after we dropped off the curry exhibition rescue they actually started a ground search we began an aerial search to kind of search the further out areas where the Kodiak search and rescue personnel we're not gonna be able to get to the guys I feel on the right side I'll be looking up a little repeat here hopefully you know it : [Music] being coasties we like to search over water so one of the first things I recommend is to do a shoreline search there's deep valleys rivers ridges canyons and he could be anywhere [Music] good looking good after we dropped off the kurta exhibition rescue they actually started a ground search we began an aerial search of the area the information we received was that he had gone hiking in jeans and a sweatshirt had been out there for hours that situation somebody could easily be hypothermic I'll be looking at little repeat here hopefully good : there's deep valleys rivers ridges canyons he could be anywhere I guess running a search pattern now but he wandered off got hurt two thirds of the way through our planned search area we got a call over the radio saying that they had located the person and that we were gonna have to do a vertical surface hoist because he was on the side of a cliff sir what's the story I know kind of big yes they found my name is JC Menezes flight mechanic here in Air Station Kodiak when I heard that this hiker was on the side of a cliff I had a million different thoughts this was my first clip operation on the way out there we talked about every scenario in our head once we got on scene a lot of the scenarios that we talked about were thrown out the window so this cliff is huge we come around the corner at about 200 feet and that cliff is going well over our head cliff rescue for a Coast Guard helicopter pilot that's what we call a low frequency high risk event it's certainly something we train for but it requires a whole different skill set than doing any rescue of the water we have a very high-risk voice to do he has nowhere to go okay so let's make sure we're doing this right breathe ASD one called Morrissey US Coast Guard so basically as a vertical surface as a swimwear you go down attach the helicopter you knock it off the hook you take a quick strap down you hooked at individual end and you lift them off pull away from their cliff and then hoist them up to the helicopter so you know he was in a little bit of a nook and one of the things that we actually had an issue with was right above the person the cliff face actually moved outwards again so he was kind of hidden under a little bit of a shelf [Music] problem that we had was with that little overhang above the person our hoist cable could actually rub on the rocks and if that happened you have the possibility of the hoist cable parting the rescue swimmer could actually fall off the cliff or we could have a rescue swimmer and another person stuck on a cliff and needing rescue in a bouquet after all the good ideas are you know put into one pot you see what our best plan is this time to put Claude out the door okay and I was going down you know you get lowered out the door and you're 300 foot 100 foot above the ground you're like holy man hi when they're doing something at that high I remove they make is exaggerated down below so I've got a good swing going I keep missing it now my glowing red spot I want you staying calm you know I'm watching the cable is quite above that knife edge just barely contacted so I'm just like jeez I don't wanna get a Campbell rubbish then I'm feared off over 200 foot freefall [Music] there was a person that had gone out hiking and had not returned this clip is huge we have a very high risk poised to do we are hundred percent have to be rubbing on that cliff edge try to control the swing here's better going on you know I'm watching the cable it's right above that knife I just barely contacted it so I'm just like jeez I don't wanna get a cable rub then I'm feared off over 200 foot freefall and I'm not very graceful so I'm gonna go down like a bumble bee guy stay there stay calm we got you don't move he seemed pretty contact said hey I need a ride out of here you know I need to get off this cliff I've been here since 2:00 o'clock my guys been here a while [Music] there's the great flying off the top of the cliff twigs bushes branches rocks oh I got a helmet on I'm not wearable instead get knocked in the head so not a good place to be a one of the more hazardous phases of this hoist is exactly when Claude is about to take the survival off of his stable position off of that little point on the cliff Claude sticks his arm out points it over the water that's the sign it's time to back away from the cliff that's exactly what we do i conned the helicopter away from the cliff dropped altitude and I raised them up and pull them both from the cabin [Music] bring so much flowers I count [Music] no drivers like it I'm gonna be embedded or as soon as we got the hiker inside the cabin put a blanket around him he looks extremely cold 21 hours on a Ledge in near freezing conditions and rain all night I was probably more shocked that he was doing as well as he was and he was it's a really good feeling to know that he was okay we got him off the cliff it's quite amazing to see four different people doing four different tasks inside that helicopter come together and rescue someone [Music] my name is Matt I work for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game I probably left camp about 1:30 by two o'clock I knew I was in trouble because of where I was I knew the only way that anyone was gonna pull me off that cliff was the Coast Guard helicopters sitting on the side of a cliff of the hunter foot drop the biggest thing was to make sure that I wasn't gonna fall asleep after sitting there for 21 hours I saw the helicopter coming around and then it was just kind of a waiting game for someone to actually noticed me the Coast Guard has been something that's been part of my life since I was a little kid I'm glad they came they were on it and I was extremely happy to get off that rock face alive because I'm pretty sure the only other way off was going down [Music] I couldn't sleep at all didn't sleep a wink so it's kind of taking its toll on me I'm dragging a little bit you know sleep we're on day two for survival training here in be Orca a lot of people were really cold in their shelters but exercise is about surviving not comfort you know we're not camping we're not hanging out around the bonfire out here they have very minimal equipment to work with only what they would have on them if they were flying it's not comfortable but it will keep you alive so 40 40 we gave the teams that bearing and we've sent them out or random distances in the woods and they need to get a sustainable fire going we want to go fat in down here since this is our fire spot it's a wet environment all the wood is wet all the vegetation the whole place is just so it's gonna be a pretty good challenge we didn't find somewhere right here I think they've been there already they're only getting kindling and stuff yeah hopefully it's a good fuel source for the fire as we're building the fire the two lessons are patience and preparation you have to have everything ready to go and you have to be patient if you get too eager you've dumped too much wood on too quickly you're gonna put the fire out here we go the tinder is pretty easy to light but a fire that you can sustain for hours and hours it's very difficult and it requires lots of skill we rewarding to be able to walk into the middle of woods and start a fire in the wettest environment ever but it's not lit yet if you look there's nothing underneath of it it can burn I think she's done ah our foundation was jammed up I don't think we should have it on this wet piece of bark we got the kindling going and we kind of winter out at our own way and it went out so we moved locations got some more kindling and restarted it again and see which way the flames are blowing do you want to put something underneath them you got your nice bridge got air flow lay those things on over the bridge like this difficult frustrating yes but they still got a fire in the rain forests in Alaska one of the wettest places the United States so that's a pretty big confidence builder right there they were rewarded with some Brock's for them to eat they've gone about almost 40 hours it's very little food when you haven't eaten in a couple days and get rewarded with something as small as one hotdog very big morale booster and you think we're on hot or on a high right now that's for sure as the CEO here it makes me feel really good that if I send my people out and for some reason they have to sit down in the wilderness until we can find them they can survive and they can take care of themselves [Music] okay call when you know and I'll coordinate fuel a standpoint lieutenant is real young I am the OTO for tonight's festivities Motor Vessel / tugboat named polar wind is hurt aground in the vicinity Pavlov Bay which is about 30 miles east northeast of Cold Bay / kinko five humans on board looking to get them off before things go too bad to ground people on board the reason we're going because they started water at 65 is also going one point so we're gonna go out there do the hoist so we got the six five four four on the back of the Sherman there in the beaver Inlet here just east of Dutch Harbor their intent is to take off out of here and head directly to the case six zero zero three just took off out of Kodiak hopefully they're gonna be able to fly over the spine of the island so they can head direct but they're gonna be fighting some pretty significant headwind in the battle getting alpha the winds are pretty bad the wind would come up and blow down and loss around pretty good it was definitely more difficult hoist that I've did before Heather Bryan 2009 pitch start the only light I had was really from the kilo it it being dark the wind howling deck be slippery it was definitely a challenge board started on water so we got the six five four four on the back of the chairman there in the beaver Inlet here just east of Dutch Harbor their intent is to take off out of here and head directly to the case six zero zero three just took off out of Kodiak hopefully they're gonna be able to fly over the spine of the island so they can head direct but they're gonna be fighting some pretty significant headwind what's our eta three and a half hours to Cold Bay two or three places always have 40-knot winds you know you go through the summer you're happy it's all milk and honey and now winter times here and everybody starts earning their paycheck especially the Mariners around here they're much braver than I am I wouldn't do it Cold Bay is at least three hours on a good day to get from Kodiak down there if you had a lot of a headwind and bad weather all the way down well the first place goes right back down at the trail line after we got there first with the age 65 based upon the weather and the conditions we decided that we'd be best to hoist initially three of the survivors and then leave our rescue swimmer with two of the survivors to keep them relatively safe the BART incisor dorsal area the basket three times to the end of the talk from front identify these questions of what no questions complete roster step Iowa get some stuff ready in the back the plane was bouncing up and down pretty good I was trying to maintain steady hover but the wind gusts probably 40 50 miles now or just picked us up and drop this down waves were definitely washing over the back of the tug there and those guys were pretty anxious to get off followed by two more with Carolyn well we got a little seen there was already a swimmer that got left behind about a 65 so we didn't have to use our swimmer for the moving boat definitely made it a scramble because it was not consistent the waves were not consistent and boat deck being slippery wind howling and definitely made putting those survivors in the basket a little bit harder it's halfway on Tron building the winds are pretty bad the wind would come up and blow down and lost around pretty good definitely more difficult voice that out there before it was a challenge night it start the only light I had was really from the kilo it it being dark the wind howling deck being slippery it was definitely a challenge and second fibers get inside the basket that's clear at the vessel [Music] asking outside counsel [Music] on the basket points up please so thank the Stars your cover the rescue smart and the readies the beggar ready checklist complete ready for water plague recovery of this woman runs an avid coffee is good go bird at the hook Safety's always a concern for us because we kind of know that if we can't do it you know there's gonna be a very very thin amount of people that could do it ever doors close raisin for fun job guys I was one of the tougher ones out that so far wasting evolution was really short due to the fact that the 60 the swimmer from the 65 stayed on on the vessel and get the three hoist just real quick made it real nice to get out of there other than you know the gusting conditions the waves look pretty tired I felt that we've done a job well done that's completion of the mission was happy that everybody got off safe and it does feel good that you're actually helping somebody but it was nice to get some rest afterwards cuz we were pretty big [Music] nine-year-old male it's got a knee injury about seven eight miles outside of the city of Cordova hiker had injured his knee and a cabin surrounded by some very deep snow it was at least eight to ten feet we knew that a hiker would have an amazing amount of trouble getting out of there with an injured knee [Music] all right so 69 year-old male it's got a knee injury and can't walk around very well about seven eight miles outside of the city of Cordova in the mountains [Music] 69 year-old Mel was hiking up to a cabin and had fell through the snow with one of his legs and he twisted his knee that's when they decided to call us because he was unable to hike back down from the cabin it was a three and a half mile hike a couple of areas that are available for landing may not be the best probably end up pointing him to the deck he'll go into the cabin find out whether we can use a basket or whether we want to put them in a litter and packaging depending on how much he can flex his knee and go from there okay music directory and rocky star and five GOP over three thicker have you a clear over who's necessary to have a helicopter in this situation this hiker it injured his knee in a cabin surrounded by some very deep snow there's at least eight to ten feet and we knew that a hiker would have an amazing amount of trouble getting out of there with an injured knee the short flight maybe 5-10 minutes away I would locate the cabin pretty quickly it was top of a kind of a snowy Knoll and it had a red roof those easiest spot amongst the snow and trees once you get on scene there's a lot of snow in the landing area I was really small landing area so we thought about maybe placing the swimmer down littering the guy up or move wouldn't put him in a basket several feet power on in there on the wheel we opted not to do the hoist but to actually put wheels on deck but keep power on to keep us as light as possible so we didn't sink into the snow [Music] when we go to do an approach on a rough air landing something like that it was pretty confined I'm looking around I want to make sure that we're clear the trees the tail as well as and also I jumped out went and talked to the patient as the two is able to walk and he was so I grabbed him and we walked back inside the helicopter the helicopters producing enormous winds off off that rotor head so the stores healthy em and so they're basically going against maybe hundred mile an hour winds so it's it's really a BT around a lot [Music] all right [Music] on the fly I got him situated to where he was comfortable looked at his knee did a focused exam of it noticed some swelling and some bruising [Music] in this case a helicopter was best through that much snow it would have been very very difficult if not impossible for a hiker to make it out with an injured knee like like this one had ten CDs in the open there a straight breakthrough and all of a sudden the leg got flexion to tell myself I'm serious it's essentially it could really go bad if I say sheriff yeah someone's in here [Music] once the Coast Guard OCS I do really yeah and I was half the diopter short of my helicopter training brilliant I've always looked at taste with great pride and now I have a whole nother dimension to look at here it goes there yet every time I see references to Coast Guard this is it it's the proud say far as I'm concerned it was an excellent feeling to be able to help out our hiker being a former Coast 'i had actually wanted to be in flight school himself and at least he got a flight in our helicopter today i think he gave him a little bit of you

Channel: DangerTV

Views: 222,994

Keywords: stranded hiker saved, coast guard alaska, coast guard alaska full episode, coast guard alaska season 3, coast guard alaska season 3 episode 6, episode 6 of season 3 of coast guard alaska, us coast guard, us coast guard alaska, united states coast guard, united states coast guard alaska, air station kodiak, coast guard search & rescue, coast guard search and rescue, search & rescue, search and rescue, danger, dangertv, danger tv, Danger, DangerTV, Danger TV, us military, helicopter

Id: MgwL61whfD0

Length: 42min 33sec (2553 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 18 2020