[00:00:00] Speaker A: The rescue swimmer turns and starts to try to duck dive the wave, and you just see the massive wave hit the vessel and it tumbles it like it's nothing, like it's a little.
[00:00:09] Speaker B: Oh my God.
[00:00:10] Speaker A: Bath toy. It's ridiculous.
[00:00:12] Speaker B: So you're telling me that Moana was really dumb for going out to sea without having any training? I mean, really? That's what I'm taking from this conversation.
[00:00:22] Speaker A: Yeah, her dad might have had a point on that one.
[00:00:39] Speaker C: Hey, DCL Duel fans, we've got some exciting news to share with you because going forward, our bonus shows and live shows are being brought to you by the great folks over at DCL magazine. That's right, it's exciting news for Disney Cruise fans because they are thrilled to announce the launch of DCL magazine, setting sail soon. Whether you're a seasoned cruiser or planning your first magical voyage, DCL Magazine will be your go to guide for everything Disney cruising. From destination highlights, advanced planning tips and dining reviews, to behind the scenes details, in depth stories, and interviews with imagineers and cast members, DCL Magazine will have it all. Don't miss the chance to make your next Disney cruise even more magical. Join the launch waitlist by heading over to wDW dash magazine.com. that's wdw Dash magazine.com. we're so excited for this sponsorship. With WDW magazine and the all new DCL magazine, we think it'll make a great compliment to all the great tips and tricks you're already getting from this show. So be sure to head over to to WDW Dash magazine.com. and right now, if you head over to WdW Dash magazine.com, you can use a promo code, all caps Dclduo. That's all caps D C L duo for 10% off everything in their store, including their magazine subscription. So head over there, check it out with that onto our episode. Welcome back, everybody, to this week's episode of the DCL duo podcast, brought to you by my path, unwinding travel. And Sam, I'm gonna throw it straight over to you to introduce this fabulous. I never thought we would get to talk about this kind of a topic on the show, and I'm just like, I'm super excited to dive right in, so I'm not going to give it any further complications.
[00:02:15] Speaker B: And dive is. Dive is an operative word here, so.
All right, I'm really excited, too. I'm going to welcome to the show Kevin, before I tell anybody who you are, what you do, all of that. Kevin has been listening to our show for a long time, has been involved in our Facebook group, and we got to know him and what he does for a living through Facebook. And he offered to come on and talk about this really interesting topic. But first, I'm just going to say welcome to the show, Kevin.
[00:02:45] Speaker A: Oh, thank you for having me. Yeah, it's kind of surreal actually talking to you guys for the first time, but, yeah, couldn't be more excited.
[00:02:51] Speaker B: Oh, well, thank you.
[00:02:53] Speaker C: People say that, but we are, we are just normal people. We're just normal people. Everyone out there, we are just normal people.
[00:03:01] Speaker B: Actually, if anything, we're kind of abnormal people, Brian.
[00:03:05] Speaker C: But if anyone deserves accolades, it's you, Kevin. Actually, you're going to talk about what you do. Go ahead and do that. And we want to hear, give listeners a sense of what your cruising background is like. And then. Yes, sure.
[00:03:19] Speaker A: Yeah. So I think obviously, what got me listening to your podcast was the DCL buzz. And I had gone on my first cruise with my family. My parents kind of paid for my family and my sister's family to go on a big cruise for their anniversary. And it was a seven night eastern Caribbean on the Disney fantasy. And then, as you guys know, it's easy to get addicted once you hit that first cruise. So then we, my family had booked two cruises on the Disney wonder. One was out of Galveston and then the other one was out of San Diego. So three Disney cruises. And then I actually just got off a carnival cruise a couple weeks ago.
[00:03:58] Speaker C: Nice.
[00:03:59] Speaker A: Nice.
[00:03:59] Speaker C: And now tell everyone, tell everyone what you do for a living, because that will, that will let the cat out of the bag as to why we're having you on the show. So not the, that we wouldn't have. You want to talk about your cruises, but you reached out to us about this topic and we were dying to cover it. So. Yeah, tell folks what you do for a living, right?
[00:04:15] Speaker A: Yeah. So I am in the United States Coast Guard and I am an aviation survival technician. And what, what we do is we act as the helicopter rescue swimmers for search and rescue. So we have two different types of helicopters that we'll deploy from. We have an MH 65 and an mh 60. And the reason I kind of had reached out to you is I think there was a, a news clip of a rescue swimmer performing a medevac off one of the Disney cruise ships. And then I kind of reposted it to your guys page. And, yeah, so I feel like, you know, I've done cruise ship medevacs in the past and, yeah, I thought it'd be kind of fun to talk about a different side of cruising and. And just maritime activity that kind of. That we take care of.
[00:04:58] Speaker B: Yeah. That is. It's just such a cool and amazing that people can be rescued off of a cruise ship via helicopter. I mean, like, that's just, like, amazing to me. Now tell us, like, wait, before we.
[00:05:10] Speaker C: Dive into the discussion, let's just pause and actually say, Kevin, thank you for what you do. And we've said this a few times, and I mean it on our social media and stuff because we see these clips come all the time, and the coast guard actually does a really nice job of showcasing what they're out there doing. I just. I really like that they do that. And I just think it's just a really, I don't know, under thanked, underappreciated at times branch of our armed services that is just. It's amazing what you guys do and the. The danger you put your own selves in to help save others. So I just want to thank you for that. And now I will let Sam ask her questions.
[00:05:44] Speaker B: Yeah. So you said there's two different helicopters that you guys use for these rescue missions. Like where? Like, how far out in, like, waters, obviously, off of the coast of the United States. Do you guys actually go out to rescue people? You know, off of boats, off of, or I guess I. People who have fallen off of boats or in the water, all that. How far out do you guys go?
[00:06:09] Speaker A: So it depends.
The MH 60 helicopter is our version of the army's Blackhawk. So that one is a big helicopter, and the fuel capacity is a lot higher than our other one, the MH 65. And so typically, if you're just flying there and flying back, the MH 60 is going to have around a 200 miles nautical mile radius, like a down back that they can do. And then it's going to be about half of that. With the 65, I was stationed in the Gulf coast twice. I was in Corpus Christi and then also Houston, Texas. What we would do specifically in Houston is hop on the basically oil rigs so we could refuel in route. So you could pretty much go as far as you needed to go to get out there to do medevacs. And there was one where we were trying to meet up with a NOAA research ship, and we had to do that same thing to where we were stopping on oil rigs refueling, jump into the next oil rig refueling, and then getting out there and then executing the medevac and then coming back. So it kind of depends on the situation. But with, with cruise ships, you can have ships kind of turn around and meet you halfway, so it kind of decreases the distance that you both have to cover. And so if, I'm sure you've had some, you'll have listeners that have been on cruise ships that have had to turn around for that exact scenario.
[00:07:28] Speaker B: Yeah, I remember the one that you posted, I think, was off the coast of Oregon. Like, it was, it was not too far from, like, a story at Oregon. It was. It was the wonder. And she was, I can't remember where she was. I think she was heading out to Hawaii or something from San Diego. And so she was heading. Or maybe she was coming back. I can't remember. Or maybe she was heading to Vancouver or from Vancouver. I honestly can't remember exactly what it was, but I remember if it was, it was off the west coast. Curious, like for a rescue mission, like, how much prep time goes into this because you get word that somebody needs to be rescued. Right. So it's an emergency. Right. It's time sensitive. So how much time can you guys actually prepare for a particular rescue mission?
[00:08:13] Speaker A: So the way that we operate back on base is we'll have somebody on call 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and that that crew is going to consist of two pilots, a flight mechanic and a rescue swimmer. And what will happen is it's just like a, like a fire station. We'll be either working or sleeping or working out or whatever, and an alarm will go off. And then from there, we have 30 minutes before we have to be airborne. We will kind of rush it at, like, a pre designated meeting area. We'll get as much information as we can from our scepter, who is relaying information from whoever was calling out for the emergency. And then we'll come up with a plan. We'll do a risk assessment. So, you know, risk first gain, how, you know, what are we going to, what kind of danger are we putting ourselves in and how badly is this person injured or missing or, you know, how dire are their circumstances to make sure that it's like, okay, this all lines up. We're going to accept the mission and go. But, yeah, so 30 minutes is not a lot of time because we have to change out in whatever flight gear that we need to wear, do all the pre flight checks and get going. So I would say, you know, while you're in route, you have time, additional time to discuss the mission and go over, you know, how you're going to deploy the rescue swimmer, how you're going to extricate the survivor so you have time in or out. But I would say, too, is it's that typical telephone game. So whenever you get some, by the time it gets to you, you know, you hear one thing, and then when I'm down on the vessel or in the water or whatever the case may be, that the situation is just completely different. So, you know, that's a quality of a rescue summary. You really have to be adaptable because oftentimes you just don't know what you're going to get even though someone's telling you something. Like I said, the conditions, the survivor behavior, the patient's condition is always going to change. So by the time you get down there, you kind of just have to reassess anyway and just come up with a new plan.
[00:10:05] Speaker C: So I actually want to back us up for a second. This is super fast, but I want to back up for a second. Kevin asks, how did you get into this? Like, oh, yeah, how did you get into being a rescue swimmer? I mean, I will profess my limited knowledge of, this is what I've seen online. And then obviously there was the movie many, many years ago now, Kevin Costner that I think, you know, really publicized this work.
[00:10:28] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. That was with, yeah. Kevin CoStner and what's his face. Ashton Kushner. Kushner.
[00:10:32] Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know how much that movie is derided by the Coast Guard or not, but regardless, I'm just curious, how did you get into this? Were you like a, you know, were you into swimming in college or like what? Like, how'd you get into this?
[00:10:45] Speaker B: Did you like to jump off helicopters?
[00:10:47] Speaker A: I mean, no, I definitely never thought I would, I would be jumping out of helicopters and definitely never thought I'd be a rescue swimmer. I'm from Albuquerque, New Mexico. So the desert, no, no water.
[00:11:00] Speaker B: Land, no water. I mean, people have pools, but no, no lakes and stuff.
[00:11:05] Speaker A: Yeah. And I just grew up playing sports, and I, I had that kind of background of sports and discipline there. And then when I got into college at the University of New Mexico, I enrolled in the Army ROTC program. And when I was in there, I really kind of found a love for the military, but I kind of also realized that the army wasn't for me, but I wanted to find something in the military that I really enjoyed. And funny enough, you mentioned that movie the Guardian. I was watching that with my parents, and I was in Army ROTC at the time. And I remember walking out of that theater thinking, like, I could never do that. Like, I'm not a good enough swimmer. There's no way I could ever do that.
[00:11:44] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:11:45] Speaker A: Yeah. And then I, so, but then I stumbled along, you know, and found the coast guard and initially wanted to do law enforcement. And then I was around that and I kind of thought, no, the law enforcement thing in the coast guard isn't for me. But this rescue swimmer thing was kind of always, always kind of pulling at me. And I just thought the lifestyle that they had, the day to day job that they had was really cool. And then, you know, who doesn't want to go and help people out in their, their time of need? So, yeah, I was like, I'm just going to do it. And I trained as hard as I could on my own, and then I went to what we called an airman program at the time, and that's where I trained with rescue swimmers for about six months. And then I went to our a school, and that's where you go through the really arduous training that's depicted in that movie. And another funny thing is, so now what I currently do in the coast guard is I am the rescue swimmer school chief at Asta school. So I basically oversee rescue swimmers rescue swimmer school. So it's kind of come full circle for me now.
[00:12:45] Speaker B: Oh, that's so cool. So you trained the rescue swimmers of the future.
[00:12:50] Speaker C: You went from Ash and Kutcher to Kevin Costner.
[00:12:53] Speaker B: Kevin Costner.
[00:12:53] Speaker C: That's a full story arc. Amazing. How long have you been with the coast guard, Kevin? I don't know that we asked that up front.
[00:13:00] Speaker A: So I've been in the coast guard for a little over 17 years, and almost 15 of those I've been a rescue summer NASD.
[00:13:09] Speaker C: Do you have any sense of, like, how many rescue missions you went out on in your time?
[00:13:13] Speaker A: I have a, yeah, you, you start to lose count just because different areas that you're stationed are, you know, vary in how busy you are. So, like, in Houston, I was very busy, especially doing maritime medevacs. I was in Barber's point, Hawaii, and we did a lot of flying and searching, but not as much. I didn't get as much action there. And then in corpus, I got a little more action, too. So I've probably flown about twelve to 1300 hours total, so. But some of that's been training, obviously, and summer is operational machines.
[00:13:45] Speaker C: What's the, I guess, what's the hardest posting for this work? Is there one or, I mean, I'm sure they're all difficult at some capacity but is there, you mentioned you like seeing a lot of action. Is there a particular posting that is just like super action heavy?
[00:13:58] Speaker A: I guess there's definitely stations that I think that we'll see a little more action than others. You know, obviously Alaska comes to mind just because the, the weather is so severe there. So you, you can get into some pretty crazy rescues and pretty crazy medevacs with the fishing fleet that's out there. You know, you mentioned Astoria. Astoria, Oregon is actually where we do our advanced helicopter rescue school, and they picked that because the waves are massive there. And, you know, you can regularly train in 30 foot breaking swell and cliffside rescues that we, we do. So we have a cliff that we, that we work with out there. And then, you know, on the east coast, you have Cape Cod, which is pretty busy, especially in the wintertime. So they have a pretty big fishing fleet there, too. So it can depend, you know, New Orleans is a really busy spot as well. So.
[00:14:47] Speaker B: Yeah, just lots of ship craft, right? I mean, anywhere where there's a lot of shipping traffic, I would imagine, you know, accidents happen and so there's just more, more stuff to do for you.
[00:14:57] Speaker A: All right. And then the Gulf coast just in and of itself. When I was stationed in Houston, I think we had about eight named storms in one year there. So you're just having tropical storms and hurricanes of different categories that just come through the area all along and you'll deploy to certain areas. So, like us being in Houston, we would help out in Florida and other places along the east coast and. Yeah, so it stays busy there, too.
[00:15:19] Speaker B: Now, is there like an age limit that you have to be, you know, I'm thinking under, not obviously over, but to be like a rescue swimmer, is there like a, well, one, is there a limit? But two, is there just sort of a prime age, even if there isn't an actual limit?
[00:15:35] Speaker A: There's, there's not. No, there's no, there's no age limit for rescue swimmer. There is an age limit to enlist in the coast guard. I'm not sure off the top of my head what that I want to say that's probably mid to low thirties or enlistment maybe a little bit higher than that. But as far as rescue swimmer school now, like, if you're in the coast guard and you're enlisted and you meet all the prerequisites for it, yeah, you can attend.
[00:15:54] Speaker B: Wow. But it's a pretty physical job, obviously. I'm sure the older you get, the more difficult it is to sort of maintain.
[00:16:02] Speaker A: Yeah, it is very tough. Our students here at the schoolhouse, they burn thousands and thousands of calories a day. It's just in this 110 week phase that we have. We call it rescue summer phase. They're pretty much either working out or in the pool learning skills training or doing pool conditioning. Zero, 800. So 08:00 till about four for ten weeks straight.
[00:16:24] Speaker B: Yeah. So they need to eat a lot is what you're saying in order to maintain their body mass, in order to know.
[00:16:31] Speaker A: Absolutely, they do. Yeah, for sure.
[00:16:33] Speaker C: I'm curious. On the cruise ship front, Kevin, as I think about it, a lot of the cruise ships have, like, medical facilities on them. I'm sure that they vary in terms of their, you know, how much they're equipped to handle different kinds of emergencies and those sorts of things. Is there a standard that, like the, either the coast guard enforces or that's, you know, do the cruise ships have direction on, like, when something has risen to a place where they need to reach out and ask for your help as opposed to trying to just get to port? Is there any sort of standard there that you know about?
[00:17:03] Speaker A: So interestingly enough, when I was on this carnival cruise, my brother in law, he was with me, and he had a contact. So he's in the coast guard as well. He's not a rescue swimmer, but he's in the coast guard, and he had a contact with someone that worked in their medical bay. We actually reached out to him. We called him on one of the ship phones and asked if we could go down and tour toward the medical facility. And they were like, yeah, sure, come on down. And so we got to meet with the doctor, a lot of the nurses, and really tore around the facility, and it was a pretty big space. They had an x ray room, a surgery room, basically everything that you would need to run a functioning small hospital, obviously, on a ship. And I asked that question as well.
When do you make that call? Exactly how you asked. And it really seemed to be up to the discretion of the doctor, to the severity of the patient and if they have the time to make it back. And then oftentimes with the level of care that they're providing. Rescue swimmers, we're EMT basic level certified, so it's going to be a drop the level of care when they hand them to us. So a lot of times we'll try to take a doctor or a nurse so they can provide care en route to the hospital so that level of care stays, stays the same throughout. But there are sometimes where we just don't have the fuel capacity to be able to do that, or the space in the helicopter. The MH 65 is a tiny aircraft, and it's tough to fit, you know, someone that's non ambulatory, meaning that they cannot walk on their own. So they were hoisted up in a litter. And then also myself, the flight mech and a doctor and all the medical equipment. It's a, it is a tight, tight squeeze in there. So sometimes it's just that we're not able to bring them.
[00:18:45] Speaker B: When you say medical personnel, you're talking about taking somebody, like, from the ship. It's not. You don't, you guys don't have somebody that would have come with your team. Right? It's just, it's just you. All right. So it's. Am I understanding correctly?
[00:18:58] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah. I mean, there's some cases in, you know, in places that are more remote, such as Alaska, where they'll bring, if they know that they're doing a medevac, they'll bring medical personnel with them. So the rescue summer will basically complete the hoist, and then the medical personnel will be inside the helicopter waiting. But for most cases, yes. I'm speaking about bringing up one of their staff with us, and that's what we did when I did my medevac off the, it was the carnival journey out of Galveston when I did one.
[00:19:26] Speaker C: Are you typically, too. I'm always curious about this. So you're bringing a passenger off. I don't assume you're bringing a family member with them in any way. Like, you're bringing the passenger off, getting them to medical attention. That's your primary objective.
But do you transport a family member with them? Maybe in the case of children, I don't know. But what's the, what's the protocol there?
[00:19:47] Speaker A: Like, yeah, definitely. Yeah. In the case of children, you would most definitely want to bring one of the parents or guardians along with. But again, you know, for adults, it'll be, it'll be really dependent on space and fuel and being able to make it back to wherever we're trying to get to.
[00:20:04] Speaker B: Now, what, what is sort of the range of injury you've had to deal with in one of these, in one of these evacuations? Right. Like, from either a cruise ship or even a commercial vessel or, you know, any sort of. I'm talking about a rescue from a ship, not a water rescue, because obviously that's different. But, like, yeah, what kind of conditions are we talking these people in? Are we talking, like, broken bones, or are we talking, like, somebody who's had a heart attack or, like, is there everything in between?
[00:20:34] Speaker A: Yes. It can be something that's very minor to where something as small as maybe like, chest pain. I've experienced that off of. Off an oil tanker before picking up one of their crew members. And, yeah, he was able to walk. Put him in a basket. Honestly, he seemed. He seemed fine. Pretty basic. But you can get advanced medical emergencies such as heart attacks, strokes, anything like that, and then obviously trauma related injuries, and you start to see trauma on fishing vessels and pleasure craft and things like that. There was one pleasure craft that I had where the owner of the vessel, he was kind of going at high rates of speed and kind of this swampy area, and he ended up running aground, and it slowed his boat and he impacted the center console. So he had, like, a head injury. And then. So from that head injury, he started to act differently. So then I had to deal with him being combative and not wanting to get the, you know, the medical attention that he needed. So it can range from anything, you know, and then you can get into some of the, the scarier ones on, like I said, on shrimping vessels and fishing vessels of injured limbs and stuff like that.
[00:21:45] Speaker B: Oh, wow. Yeah. So you've probably had to deal with, like, somebody who's, like, lost a limb, I imagine.
[00:21:50] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah. There's been some, some, you know, ones that just stick with you to where I think any responder, any first responder, whether that be, you know, police, fire, paramedics, you have those cases where it's tough and you have to kind of deal and process with those things and. But hopefully you do get the good and the bad mixed in there. So you hope to not dwell on the bad ones and kind of learn from them and then move on from them.
[00:22:15] Speaker C: I assume the coast guard gives you guys some trauma counseling or something like that after the bad ones.
Is that fair? Do they provide that for you?
[00:22:24] Speaker A: Absolutely. They do a really good job providing us those resources that we need, the space that we need, because, you know, it depends on what you're going through, how you process it, how quickly you can come back from that, because you don't want to still be in the middle of trying to process something that you dealt with and then go back on the job again, especially when it's something as dangerous as flying in a helicopter. And typically, when we're responding to these cases, we're not doing it on, you know, sunny days with no clouds in.
[00:22:55] Speaker B: The sky, like, in perfect light conditions right in the middle of the day. No, they feel like it's always at night.
[00:23:03] Speaker A: Yeah. You're just like. And then it's funny, too. I feel like any survivor that I've had has always. It's never been just a small, you know, smaller frame person. It's always just this massive fisherman that's just hard to get into the litter or whatever the case may be. It's always, it's always the toughest scenario.
[00:23:20] Speaker B: Oh, my goodness.
[00:23:21] Speaker C: What's the, what's the hardest factor? When, when you're talking about. So when you talk about, like, a cruise ship, just medevac. Right. I want to ask you, actually, about some of the search and rescue stuff with the cruise ships, but. But with the medevac, like, what's the biggest, is it weather is the biggest factor? What's the biggest danger that you encounter when you're doing that kind of a rescue?
[00:23:39] Speaker A: I would say yes. Weather, visibility would probably be the dangerous. Are the most dangerous aspects of doing a cruise ship medevac? Honestly, cruise ship medevacs are, they're pretty straightforward. So typically, like the, as you guys know, cruise ships don't move around that, that much. Even in, even in bad seas, they're still pretty stable. When you compare that to a pleasure craft or a sailing vessel or, you know, something like that. So they, they're, they're not moving around. We're not having to time swells or anything like that. And then they also have big open hoisting platforms. So again, when you go back to those smaller vessels, they have, they're really congested. There's opportunity for me to get tangled in rigging or, or something, you know. So when you have a cruise ship, it's nice because it's like, hey, here's this platform, usually on the bow, maybe off to the port quarter, which is the left hand side aft, and, yeah, so then you just kind of get lowered down to that open area. But the thing that can make it dangerous is definitely the visibility. So if you can't really see if the pilots are having a hard time seeing the vessel itself and then the wind direction. There was one medevac recently that they, an H 60 was trying to do out of New Orleans, and there's actually video of this that you can look up, but the wind change directions. The 60 had to break away and fly out. And you can see the 60 getting like 10ft off the water and then before they can pull up again.
[00:25:06] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:25:07] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. Very dangerous. And, and that's just simply because, you know, typically with the helicopter, you want to face into the wind because it's going to provide you extra lift, but then it kind of shifted directions into it.
[00:25:19] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:25:19] Speaker A: Yeah. And it gave it a downdraft and it kind of.
[00:25:21] Speaker B: They were able to pull the water. Wow. That's terrifying. Now, I'm curious, with cruise ships, like, so some of the cruise ships actually have, like, a helipad on them. Do the helicopters ever actually land on the cruise ship to do a rescue? Or are you always, like, you being lowered in a basket and then taking the person up with you, you know, via the rope hanging thing? Right. Like, do they happen both ways or do they really just happen using the basket?
[00:25:51] Speaker A: They can happen both ways, but I would say that typically it's going to be, it's going to be a hoist. Just because, I don't know, I feel like you can make the case that it would be safer than having to land on the vessel itself, especially when you have an open platform, but you can always have that open platform, and it's still be pretty dangerous. And I had mentioned that medevac that I did off that NOAA research vessel. If you've ever seen one of these vessels, they look kind of funny because they have a giant helipad off the bow of their ship that's, like, elevated above everything else, so they have the bow of it. And then this helipad that's way up in the front, which isn't ideal because anytime they're, you know, there's rougher seas, it's going. It's tipping up and down. I was trying, they were trying to lower me down to it. I got caught in between them lowering me on the cable and then the helipad coming up. And I just got, like, kind of crunched against the helipad. But I kind of saw it coming. So I was able to soften my knees and just kind of, like, fall down and not really strain too hard. I was like, okay, I'm just going to go with it. And then just kind of fall down and crumple down. And it actually kind of helped. But, yeah, it's always, there's so many different factors that go into play with these that you, you're always trying. Okay, how can we do this? The safest way possible for not only the patient, but also our air crew?
[00:27:09] Speaker C: What? From a, from a search and rescue standpoint? So, I mean, look, we hear all the time now people going over the sides, either deliberately or accidentally on of these ships. Like, what, what role do you all play then? I mean, you're out there just kind of, you know, circling in grid search patterns or, like, how. How does. How does that work?
[00:27:26] Speaker A: Yeah, definitely. So we will typically get a search pattern from our home base, our sector, what we call it. So they'll, they'll come up with a search pattern using various, you know, various reference references, such as the wind, the current, the time, every, everything that they'll calculate into that search pattern. And then some will be grid. Some will just be, like, kind of down and backs. Some will be circular. But typically, yeah, we'll do the grid search pattern, and then if it's at night, we have night vision goggles that the aircrew will use. And then we also have an infrared camera on the front of our aircraft. And then usually for, if we can't find them right away, they'll launch a fixed wing aircraft as well, which also has infrared cameras that are much more capable than the ones that we have on our, on the helicopters. So they'll latch, you know, cutters, which are our ships, and small boats, and. Yeah, throw kind of the whole kitchen sink at it and try to find the person.
[00:28:24] Speaker B: Have you ever done a water rescue from one of these search and rescue operations?
[00:28:30] Speaker A: I have. I've done a few water ones in Hawaii. I think I probably had the most water rescues when I was stationed in Hawaii.
[00:28:38] Speaker B: Yeah. At least it's warmer weather water, I guess, more likely to find a survivor, maybe.
[00:28:44] Speaker A: No, totally. Yeah. The survivability of a survivor goes up exponentially in warmer waters because they can just be out there longer. And one of those that I had, and this is a great illustration of that was there was a little Cessna that was. Had two pilots in it, and they were flying from Maui to the big island. They ended up. We got a mayday call. We went out there, and we were searching, couldn't find them. And then the next day, we were searching again and found some wreckage. We got into a hover, and then we saw two people floating, clinging on to some debris. And then I. So I jumped out. I swam up to them. They had some cuts on their faces. They told me that a shark was circling them throughout the night. And, yeah, that was, that one was special because when, when we brought them back to the airport in, I think it was on in Maui. Yeah. So we went back to Maui. Their families were, like, waiting for them, and that was cool to see them reunited, you know, and I got to take a picture and give one of their moms a hug and, yeah, that was a special, special time in my career because especially in Hawaii, it's just paradise. You know, you guys talk about Koalina. I love going to, but it's so dangerous, and it's. It can be so deadly if you don't respect it and you don't respect the ocean and, and the water in the land, it can be unforgiving. And unfortunately, out there, when we do go on these cases and we search for people, a lot of the times we're unsuccessful. So when you. When you're able to find somebody and then you reunite them with their family, it's pretty powerful.
[00:30:18] Speaker B: Oh, my God. You're gonna make me cry, Kevin, this is like, this is just like the stuff that just hits you right in the feels, right? I mean, I'm, like, imagining this. This reunion between, you know, this adult and their mom and just all the tears and. Oh, my God, that's terrifying.
[00:30:36] Speaker C: What is. I'm just curious, like, what is the survivability for folks to go over the side of one of these big ships? Like, it feels like it's. More often than not, we hear they're not found. And I don't know if that's because at the time they went over, people just didn't know they'd gone over. And so then it's like, how far have you gone before?
[00:30:51] Speaker B: Right?
[00:30:53] Speaker C: Yeah. Like, what are the factors that you see that sort of drive? Like, maybe the survivability of. Of one of those incidents?
[00:30:59] Speaker A: The biggest factor is going to be water temp for sure. So when you. If you're in the Caribbean, you know, or in the Pacific, in places like Hawaii, that water that's. That's up into that. That 70 degrees is going to, you know, it's going to keep you alive a lot longer than if you're going up into Alaska, where you basically have minutes out there if you fall overboard before you get hypothermia and eventually drown. So it's. Water temp is definitely going to be the biggest factor. And then, so when we were in Hawaii, we would typically, if we had got word that, you know, that we're going to run a case, so we would go for about 72 hours straight. That's typically when they would call off the searches as around 72 hours, but again, that it's going to depend on the water temp, the wind speed, the current, things like that, where they calculate all that.
[00:31:48] Speaker B: Do you love planning vacations but get tired of being the one that has to figure out all the details like Brian does? Whether you're planning a family vacation, a romantic getaway, or group travel, taking care of everything can sometimes be a hassle. Thats where mypath unwinding travel comes in. When you work with them, you can be as involved as you like, but have a trusted advisor sharing accurate information and giving you new travel ideas to ensure that your vacation is fun and seamless. And for group travel, they can help field all the questions and make sure everything is coordinated like they did for us with the inaugural DCL duo podcast cruise. They might even be able to get you special pricing or exclusive group perks. So whether youve got something booked or youre thinking about booking, reach out for a complimentary
[email protected]. dclduo or email dclduoypathunwinding.com to let them know who sent you. Thanks to mypath unwinding for sponsoring today's show. Now back to the episode I imagine off of this is gonna, this is gonna sound kind of morbid, I hope, I hope. I'm not trying to sound morbid, but this is really interesting and I'm fascinated by this. Like, if somebody falls off a cruise ship or jumps off a cruise ship, are they like a goner because they're going to get pulled underneath the ship? I mean, are they going to get crushed by the ship or like, I don't. That's what I always think of, I'll be honest. That's where my mind goes, like, that. They can't survive, not because of the temperature of the water, but because they're just going to get sucked right underneath the ship.
[00:33:12] Speaker A: As far as getting sucked under, I'm not sure how that works and how, like, the water hydraulics of, you know, that moving ship going, I honestly, I couldn't, I couldn't answer that for you. But one thing that I think would be a major factor is obviously these cruise ships are massive and they're only getting bigger and taller. And so that height, you know, the.
[00:33:32] Speaker B: Height of the fall. Oh my God, I even think about that, Kevin.
[00:33:36] Speaker C: Yeah, it's like hitting concrete at some point.
[00:33:39] Speaker B: Yeah, right, right. If you're falling from, yeah, you're falling from 15 stories or something. Right. Like, because if you're thinking about like.
[00:33:46] Speaker C: The 17 or 18 or 19, I.
[00:33:48] Speaker B: Mean, I know I'm saying like, the Oasis class ships we were, we stayed on, on deck 17, right, but most of like, but most of the pool deck was on deck 15, right, so. But that's like 15 stories down to deck one. We know there's like multiple decks below deck one, but I guess maybe deck one is probably close to the waterline. So, yeah, that's like, that's, you know, 15 stories, maybe more. I mean, I didn't even think about the height issue. Yeah, that's a. So, yeah, once they hit, the can.
[00:34:19] Speaker A: Cause injury of itself. And if you sustain a head injury and obviously you're not wearing a personal flotation device, that if you get knocked out, it's. Nothing's there to keep your head above water. So, yeah, that would be, that would probably be obviously my biggest worry. I think I. Out of a helicopter, the highest I probably jumped out was around 35ft. Typically we want to be 15ft, but this was at that advanced helicopter rescue school with that. So this was my first time at that school. And one thing that they want you to do when you're there is practice timing, set waves and jumping into the peak. So basically you'll have. You'll face the helicopter, let's just say into the swell. So the swell is coming at you. So the pilot will just park or 15ft above the peak of the wave and then you'll just have them come through. So you'll just kind of sit there and then you'll see one wave roll through. You'll let it roll through and then you'll wait for the peak to come through and then you just jump out and it should be a nice, easy jump. But me, you know, not really knowing what I was doing, this is my first time doing it. I went too early, so I saw it coming and I thought I would. I was going to get it perfect. Like, oh, here we go. And I jumped too soon and I hit basically the trough of the wave in front of it and it was about. It was about 30ft and even that was pretty painful, even hitting the well.
[00:35:39] Speaker B: And then you get hit by the wave too. Right. So, like, it's like you have two. You have two issues.
[00:35:44] Speaker C: You're.
[00:35:44] Speaker B: I'm, I'm assuming. Tell me if I'm wrong, but I'm assuming, like, the reason you're trying to hit the peak of the wave is, one, to shorten the distance between that. Of that drop. Right. So instead of it being a 35 foot drop, maybe it's only a 25 foot drop and then two. So you don't get smacked with the wave as soon as. Right after you land in the water. Right.
I'm picturing this all in my head.
So you like, hit the water and then you get smacked at the wave. I mean, because I can knock you. I mean, those kind of waves can. I mean, obviously those can just themselves be deadly. And knock somebody over who's not a good swimmer, who doesn't have a flotation device or know how to surf or whatever. Oh, my God.
[00:36:26] Speaker A: It's, yeah, the waves in the ocean, you know, obviously I've grown to have an enormous amount of respect for it. I'm a, I'm a really good swimmer, but, but I'm at the mercy of the ocean when I'm there. There's no amount of swimming that's going to where you're going to be able to overtake a strong current or anything like that. So you have to really learn how the ocean works, how waves are formed, how to approach different situations. And that was me being new and learning the hard way. But, yeah, there's also another really good video illustration of the power of the waves off the coast of Oregon. So I think it was about a year, a year and a half ago, there was a coast guard crew responding to a vessel that was DiW, which means dead in the water. And they sent the rescue swimmer down. And you could just see this white. It was a pretty big pleasure craft just kind of floating. So the rescue swimmer swims up to it and he didn't board it, but he was talking to the captain of it on the aft, being like, okay, you're gonna have to, like, jump in. You know, I'm gonna put you in this rescue device, whatever they were talking about. And they look over and there's this massive wave that's about to break on top of them. So the rescue swimmer turns and starts to try to duck dive the wave, and you just see the massive wave hit the vessel and it tumbles it. Like it's nothing. Like it's a little.
[00:37:46] Speaker B: Oh, my God.
[00:37:47] Speaker A: Bath toy. It's ridiculous.
[00:37:48] Speaker B: So you're telling me that Moana was really dumb for going out to sea without having any training? I mean, really? That's what I'm taking from this conversation.
[00:37:59] Speaker A: Her dad might have had a point on that one.
[00:38:04] Speaker C: Kevin, is there a particularly, like, I don't know, hairy rescue rewarding moment or story that just stays with you? Maybe you even share it with the folks you're training as you're training them. Did you have one of those many?
[00:38:19] Speaker A: Actually, yeah.
[00:38:20] Speaker B: I want to hear about the combative people and how you handle them. Kevin.
[00:38:24] Speaker A: Yeah, the combative people.
Well, we can start with the combative first and then go to the good story. But, yeah. So with that one that I had mentioned earlier in the show with him, I basically had to just my presence and the tone in my voice. The way that I was asking, I stopped kind of asking him to do things.
[00:38:45] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah, yeah.
[00:38:46] Speaker A: Telling him to do certain things because at a, at a certain point, he's not only endangering himself, but he's also endangering the entire air crew. You know, you can, there's certain things where, like, you can start to, like, restrain their hands a little bit so they can't unclip themselves in the middle of a hoist and they end up falling out. So there's certain ways that you can just speak with them. Your presence and then also how you affect the rescue that you can kind of deal with those combative people. One of the things, too, that we teach at our a school is we call them escapes and releases. So oftentimes, you know, panicked survivors in the water, when they see you, they basically, all they see is flotation. They don't, they don't see anything else, but, okay, I'm going to use you to keep my head above the water.
[00:39:29] Speaker B: Right. And then they're going to drown you. Yeah.
[00:39:31] Speaker A: Right, right. So they'll encircle their, you know, their arms around your neck and try to, you know, get on top of you. We basically teach, teach these maneuvers that they, their background is really based in jiu jitsu and different.
[00:39:44] Speaker B: I was imagining, like, wrestling moves. Yeah, I was imagining. That makes sense, that jiu jitsu, but. Yeah, like a, like you have to manipulate their arms to get them off of your neck.
[00:39:54] Speaker A: Right, exactly. Yeah. So you'll, you'll kind of get your Grip set. You'll. You'll do these certain throws and, and you're. You're looking to rotate them and then put them in what we call a buddy toe, a controlled cross chest buddy toe. So buddy toeing is when we're swimming on our side with the survivor on their back, basically, that are, their back is on, on our side. So we're kind of off to the side here. And then the controlled cross chest carry is when your one arm is around it and it's basically locked in with your other hand and they're not going anywhere.
[00:40:25] Speaker B: Now, are you, is your, is your arm under their arm or under one of their arms then?
[00:40:31] Speaker A: Yeah, so they're your. So I like to buddy toe with my right hip down. So my left hip is up. So I basically would bring my left arm over their chest. So right over their shoulder. So it would come right over their shoulder and then. Yeah, so then my right arm would come under that other arm and then lock in the. With what we call like a seatbelt grip.
[00:40:51] Speaker B: Gotcha. Gotcha. Yeah. So you, you've got them, you've got their torso basically. We've got one shoulder of theirs with your left arm and you've got your torso with your right arm essentially. So you're, but then you're just swimming with your legs at that point because you obviously are holding them. You can't swim with your, your arms.
[00:41:10] Speaker A: Right. Yeah, you're, you're, you're really, you're putting a lot of strain and I asking a lot of your leg endurance, but that's, you know, at this aid school that's what we, we put an emphasis on is that gear swimming and, and really using, you know, your glutes and your hamstrings to really generate that power because in big, in big surf and strong currents, you're not going to be able to use your free hand because you're going to want to hold on to that survivor because if you get hit by a wave, they'll get ripped out of your arms. So you're really, yeah. Using your legs and building up that endurance and that strength to fight through currents and waves and stuff.
[00:41:46] Speaker B: And you've got some kind of flotation I assume, on you. Right.
As part of your like, uniform that you're wearing.
I'm kind of imagining this, but I don't know.
[00:41:56] Speaker A: So obviously this depends on the water temperature, but let's say you're in a spot with warmer waters, you know, Florida or Hawaii or South Texas. So we'll go out in a wetsuitous which doesnt provide a ton of buoyancy. But when we, so we all wear this Triton vest, its our harness and in that it has a CO2 activated inflation bladder. So we only really use that unless its a dire emergency because swimming with that is kind of a nightmare. So thats really like if youre in a bad spot and you need to pull that. But otherwise, yeah, you dont have much flotation that youre you're using while you're affecting a rescue. Now, if you're in a colder environment such as Alaska or Astoria, Oregon or northern California, oftentimes you'll be in a dry suit. And dry suits can provide a little bit more buoyancy than, than your wetsuit. So you'll get a little bit from that, but it's not enough to keep you and a survivor both afloat.
[00:42:55] Speaker B: Yeah. So you're using your energy not just to swim the person but to keep you and the person afloat. That's what I was. I'm actually shocked by this, Kevin. I had. I just assumed there was some kind of. Of flotation device that you were wearing, like that. That vest. Wow. Wow.
[00:43:10] Speaker A: Yeah, no, we're. Yeah, we are the, uh, the flotation. But you get the way that we swim to our face. We have a mask and a snorkel. So your face is completely in the water, and you're. You just have that snorkel coming up, breaking the surface a little bit. So, yeah, you don't need your whole head out of the water. It allows you to just kind of stay under there and just breathe through that snorkel.
[00:43:29] Speaker B: Sorry. I co opted Brian's question, though, which was never. Sorry. Until I just realized I co opted his question.
[00:43:38] Speaker C: All of my listeners are all of our listeners out there. This is my life.
[00:43:44] Speaker B: This is what happens, like, every day in real conversations.
[00:43:49] Speaker A: But, yes. So there has been a few. I would say the most memorable one was probably the one where I told you about the family that was reunited with their family after the plane crash. Yeah. There was another one where in Hawaii, there was a family that was stuck on the sailing vessel, and they were getting kind of thrashed in reef, so there. A lot of vessels couldn't pull up next to them to help get them off. So I was able to board that vessel, and the family was huge. So it was three adults, an infant, a toddler, and two big pit bulls.
[00:44:28] Speaker B: Oh, my God. So a family of five and two dogs. Yeah. Including. And obviously the family. Family of five had two kids, infant and toddler. Oh, my God. Can they fit all in your helicopter, or are you going up or are you going there by boat or something?
[00:44:45] Speaker A: So, actually, I'm sorry, I misspoke this. I said Hawaii. This one was in Houston, and they were getting. So this. It was hurricane. I want to say it was hurricane Delta. It was coming in, and they had basically, they were dead in the water. They couldn't move because they were aground, and other vessels couldn't get close. So then that's when I. They. The helicopter lowered me down into the water. I was able to find a rope that was, like, dangling off. So I climbed up that rope and got on their vessel, and then I was assessing the situation, and that was one. When I got up there, I was talking to the family, and I was like, okay, where are the life jackets? And they're like, we don't have life jackets. Like, okay.
[00:45:20] Speaker B: Oh, my God. There's a lack of respect for the water. Just. Right. I mean, my goodness.
[00:45:26] Speaker A: Right. But it gets worse, because then my follow up question was like, okay, well, who here can swim? They're like, none of us can swim. And, oh, my God, this, you know, especially these young kids, you know, on this, on this boat, and you don't have life jackets, you don't have anything, and you can't swim, and you have these two giant pit bulls. They were sweethearts, by the way. Those dogs were amazing. But that was one of the first times where I was like, for a sec, a split second, I'm like, what am I going to do here? This, like, I really had to just, like, stop and recalibrate and, you know, come up with a game plan. And I had the mother there kind of crying and yelling at me, being like, I'm not getting in the water. Like, I can't. I'm like, you're gonna have to get in the water with me. And I can swim. Like, you'll be fine. But she was panicking like you wouldn't believe. So thank God. So luckily, what we were able to do was a coast guard 45 foot small boat came in from, I think it was stationed Galveston. They were like, okay, we're gonna attempt. Before I I had put them in the water, I was like, let's attempt. See if you have enough room to where you're not going to run aground, to where you can come along the starboard side and I can pass them over to you. And so they're like, okay, we're going to. We're going to come alongside. And sure enough, they had enough room. I was able to pass the dogs, the babies, and then we did the adults, but that was obviously, the family was relieved. I was really relieved. It was one of those situations that could have been, that could have gotten out of hand. It could have been really, really bad. You don't know which way it's going to go. Once you get that many people in the water and you're trying to hoist them and a hurricane's coming in, there's just so many different factors, so many.
[00:46:58] Speaker B: Different stressors, and none of them can even swim. They can't even float right themselves. That's crazy, Kevin. That's.
Oh, my God. I would have been like, sorry, you're out of luck. I'm out of here.
[00:47:13] Speaker C: That's why you are not a coast guard rescue swimmer, Samuel.
[00:47:18] Speaker B: I would be in a panic. I'd be like, heck, no. Oh, my God.
[00:47:22] Speaker A: Yeah, sometimes you want to do that, but you're like, oh, I gotta figure this out.
[00:47:25] Speaker B: Oh, my God. The problem solving in that kind of an emergency is really terrifying. I hope all of those people have gotten swim lessons since then.
[00:47:35] Speaker C: Yeah, that, or they've all moved to Arizona. Yeah, right.
[00:47:40] Speaker B: Or go someplace landlocked.
[00:47:42] Speaker C: So, Kevin, as we wind down here, I had sort of had one final set of questions or question for you, which was just, you know, you mentioned when you were younger, you were watching this movie with your parents. You thought, I could never do that. It kind of stuck in the back of your mind. I'm going to assume there's maybe some younger people out there listening to the show either because they actually want to listen to us or because their parents are making them on a long car ride. What advice would you give people who are listening to this show who think this really sounds like something I want to do, this is a career choice I want to make, or I want to join the coast guard and become a rescue swimmer. Like, what can they do now? Like what, what advice would you give them if they're thinking about that?
[00:48:19] Speaker A: Yeah, I would, I would say don't, don't do what I did and limit yourself before you even try something, you know? And that, that's kind of what I did when I stepped out of that movie. I was like, oh, I could never do that. I'm just not a good enough swimmer to do that. And it turns out I could do that. I just had to really put a lot of determination and discipline and consistency to be able to reach that. And I think that starts at a very young age to, with whatever you're doing. You know, it doesn't, you don't have, if you want to be a rescue swimmer, but you're not quite at the point in your life where you're ready to, unless or anything. I think discipline comes in many forms and, you know, I think sports is a great way to kind of learn that discipline and obviously school, the way that you kind of approach your studies and, and your homework and your grades and there's all these different areas of life that I think if you, you nail down and you improve, like I'm saying, that, that self discipline aspect of it and the consistency whenever the time comes real, like, hey, I want to try that. You're so used to living that lifestyle that it's going to take to become successful in anything that you do, that you're going to just step in and you're going to be able to achieve that goal. And I think you two are great examples of that because I feel like your profession that you had lent you to the skills that you're now using. And that should be inspiration to just as me being a rescue team or you guys following this passion that you do and then creating this community that we all love. Yeah, it's. You guys are great examples of that as well.
[00:49:45] Speaker B: Well, thank you. That's very sweet of you to say. I mean, we don't have to do a physical job like yours, but like any job, I think the advice you're giving is great advice for life. Right. Like anything you want to achieve is going to take some amount of work and effort unless you're the luckiest person in the world. Right. And you just fall into something that comes easy to you, which I think most people don't have. One fall into something, you know, with that kind of luck. But two, most people, you know, don't do something that comes that easy to them. But, yeah, I think if you a good amount of discipline and just fortitude, right. You just perseverance and just keep working at it and keep working at it and, and you'll get good at something. You might not be, you might not be an Olympic swimmer, but heck, you rescue people for a living. I think that's, like, way cooler, you know?
So anyway, it's great.
[00:50:39] Speaker A: It's. Yeah, you build these skills, and I think that, you know, the way that we train, we just become excellent watermen. And that's just something where when you, like I was saying, you know how to read the ocean, you know how to approach a certain rescue, and there's these, these skills that you learned that are really cool and it allows you just to really experience some fun things in life.
[00:51:01] Speaker B: Kevin, thank you so much for coming on the show. We love having you as a part of our community. We loved talking to you today. Today we're so thankful, not just that you came on our show, but thankful for what you do every day. I mean, obviously now you're not rescuing people, but you are teaching the rescuers of tomorrow. And that's just as important because obviously, if we want the Coast Guard to continue this mission of rescuing people in the water, off of, you know, vessels, whatever, I mean, which is an amazing, amazing thing that they do. We've got to have great teachers teaching these folks how to do it. So thank you for coming on. Thank you for sharing your story with us. We hope that you'll come on the show after you've been on maybe a Disney cruise in the near future. So do you have anything planned? We've got to say, we have to ask you that.
[00:51:50] Speaker A: I don't have anything booked right now, but I've been so looking forward to the Disney treasure and all the theming and everything that's coming along with that ship. So yeah, the Disney treasure is definitely in my future.
[00:52:03] Speaker B: All right, well, you'll have to join us for a future show then, but we'll just say thank you then. Thanks for coming on. Thanks for joining us, and thanks to those who are listening. See you soon.
[00:52:16] Speaker C: Well, thanks to everyone out there for listening this week. We really, really appreciate it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast. You can keep getting great content from us every week. In fact, twice a week we publish shows, so be sure to hit the subscribe button to get all of those great episodes. And if you want to watch us live, we have a live show now every week, Monday nights, 05:30 p.m. pacific 08:30 p.m. eastern over on YouTube.
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