With an attrition rate of 80%, few training processes are as punishing as that endured by the US Coast Guard’s elite rescue swimmers. To find out what it takes to battle the raging seas, MH met the men keeping others afloat in the eye of the storm
After two years of intense training, in 2004 Jonathan Disalle, 32, graduated as one of the US Coast Guard’s Aviation Survival Technicians (AST) – or elite rescue swimmers. It was the accumulation of three vigorous training programmes, focusing on everything from in water rescue drills to emergency medical procedures and intricate helicopter operating systems. Stationed in Oregon on America’s west coast, Disalle’s first day at work was, in his own words, “pretty intense”. A 25ft skiff had overturned in the 18ft swell at Basendorff Beach. By the time Disalle and his team of three helicopter crew reached the scene from their base 10 miles away, all three of the skiff’s crew were dead.
“We were too late. All we could do was pull the deceased up onto the beach,” Disalle recalls, his voice heavy with emotion. Now a lead instructor at North Carolina’s Aviation Survival Technician Academy – the school where all prospective rescue swimmers begin their training – Disalle is speaking to MH while preparing for a new intake of students. For a first day, he says, the crash was an eye-opener. But, as he soon learned, such stories are commonplace. He recalls one told by a colleague, of delivering CPR to a patient on a crowded beach when a helicopter crashed beside them.
The fact that Disalle and his teammates are able to continue in the face of such trauma is testament to their dedication and focus. The training programme required to produce such elite personnel is unparalleled outside of military circles, as is their mental and physical resilience. This is no mere lifeguard role, with just 300 AST rescue swimmers active in the entire US. “We don’t make rescue swimmers, we find them,” says Disalle. “Not everyone is cut out for it, and that’s fine. But there’s a reason there are so few of us.”
TREADING WATER
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der July 2017-Ausgabe von Men's Health UK.
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Diese Geschichte stammt aus der July 2017-Ausgabe von Men's Health UK.
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