Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey Brainstuff, Lauren Vogelbaum. Here within the US Coast Guard, there's a contingent called the Aviation Survival Technicians or ASTs, though they're more commonly known as rescue swimmers, trained to jump from helicopters to save lives in the water and from other extremely precarious situations. Before the article this episode is based on How Stuff Works. Spoke with Joseph butch Fly, a retired Master Chief Petty officer.
He recalled one of his early rescues in which he jumped out of a helicopter into the water some one hundred miles or one hundred and fifty kilometers off North Carolina shore to help two men whose sailboat had capsized in a squall. When it came time to help them get into the basket lift that the copter had lowered, the second man became alarmed by the copter's rotor. Wash Fly said, he freaked out a bit. I had to do a break on him, use pressure points sort of
like wrestling moves to get him to calm down. If he gets away from me, it's easy to lose contact. Unlike a lifeguard at a pool. Rescue swimmers can't let go of someone no matter what. ASTs are key members of helicopter crews trained to rescue people from everything from crashing surf and ocean waves to cliff faces and ice floes to hurricane flooded homes. Fly said, you have to be an element of calm in a world of chaos.
It's grueling work, even for specialists who are highly trained and in excellent physical condition, involving the constant threat of serious injury and even death. Amazingly, Fly says the US Coast Guard has yet to suffer a fatality in the water, but swimmers have dealt with broken bones, damaged spines, and other serious injuries. He said, if you're doing a high hoist and they're putting you down into a vessel that's rocking back and forth, you can get slammed into the side.
We had a guy dropped down into a burning diesel slick and he got burns in his throat from inhaling it. A Fly called another colleague who narrowly escaped being trapped in a cave and had to exert himself so strenuously that he pushed his core body temperature up to one
hundred and four degrees fahrenheit. That's forty celsius. The Coastguard's rescue swimmer program was created after the nineteen eighty three Marine Electric tragedy, in which a US Coast Guard helicopter team attempted to rescue thirty four crew members of the ship the Marine Electric, that capsized during a winter storm off the coast of Virginia. By the time the team had arrived on the scene, most of the people in the water had developed hypothermia and were unable to climb
into the aircraft's rescue basket. In the end, only three of the ship's crew of thirty four were saved. After an investigation of the disaster, Congress directed the Coastguard to train selected members of the service to go into the water to perform rescues. A Fly, one of the Coast Guard's initial group of rescue swimmers, later ran rescue swimmer training at the Services Facility in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, and eventually became manager of the National Rescue Swimming Program
before retiring in two thousand and seven. He actually portrayed himself in the two thousand and six action thriller The Guardian, a film about Coast Guard Rescue Swimmers, starring Kevin Costner and Ashton Kusher. In addition to swimming, AST's duties include inspecting and maintaining emergency equipment, and training and testing others and survival skills, such as how to get out of
a sinking aircraft. Fly, who was trained by the US Navy because the Coast Guard hadn't yet started its own school, says that the Coast Guard rescue swimmers function is different from their Navy counterparts, whose job is primarily to rescue well trained pilots have crashed in the water during combat. The Coast Guard isn't generally facing combat, but there are other challenges in coming to the assistance of civilians. Fly
said they deploy in some very hairy situations. I would get lowered down to a fishing boat with mom, pops, some kids, and the dog. We have to deal with untrained people. That means that, in addition to being a highly conditioned athlete and a skilled swimmer, a rescue swimmer also has to be part psychologist and understand how to deal with someone paralyzed by panic in an unfamiliar and
frightening situation. From the time that they jump from the helicopter into the water, ideally from a height of ten to fifteen feet that's three to four and a half meters. A rescue swimmers also have to work against the clock because the aircraft only has a limited amount of fuel and has to keep enough in the tank to get back to land. A rescue swimmers go into the water clad in wetsuits with other layers of clothing underneath to
protect them against cold water. They're also outfitted with a protective helmet, a mask and snorkel, a safety harness, and an array of gear that includes a knife, strobe light to make them visible to aircraft, and the radio that enables them to communicate with the helicopter's pilot if there's a need to change the game plan for a rescue. One of the most important parts of their gear are the big black foot fins that enable them to swim
more powerfully. They are also equipped with arduous training in which they're subjected to simulated storms, complete with artificially generated waves and lightning and water sprayjets to simulate the chaotic environment underneath a hovering copter flyve said. The training also measures how that person reacts under stress. They'll introduce scenarios when a swimmer jumps out of a helicopter and has
one survivor, then two survivors, then three. But despite all the training, rescue swimmers sometimes have to deal with unpredictable risks. Flyth were called a rescue swimmer in Alaska, for example, who arrived at the scene of an aircraft crash and was confronted by a bear looking for a scuffle and had to chase it off with the flare. The people who take on such a risky, stressful job have a
variety of motivations. For some, it's a desire to have a challenging career, while others may be driven by patriotism or the altruistic satisfaction of helping save others. A fly said, when you're in the aircraft afterward and the people you've rescued are looking at you, you can see the gratitude in their eyes. Today's episode is based on the article host Guard rescue swimmers risk all to save lives and HowStuffWorks dot Com, written by Patrick J. Higer. Brain Stuff
is production of iHeartRadio in partnership with how Stuffworks. Dot Com is produced by Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.