hist2004
07-21-2004, 10:32 PM
Ten years ago, Coast Guard rescue swimmer Mario Vittone saved a family of four off the Virginia coast in a dramatic rescue that drew national attention and earned awards for Vittone and the rest of the crew.
Vittone, 38, was surprised at being called a hero then and still shrugs off the dangers and attention that come with being a rescue swimmer.
The job is tough. Rescue swimmers often are called out in the middle of the night at the height of storms and go into water with massive waves breaking over their heads to bring in boaters in trouble.
But - don't tell anybody - Vittone would do this job for free, he said.
"I like the water, and I like planes and the only way to mix the two without crashing was this job," Vittone said.
The Coast Guard has 240 rescue swimmers at stations on both coasts. Last year at the Elizabeth City Air Station, the Coast Guard carried out 260 search-and-rescue missions , said Lt. Brian Willson, an H-60 Jayhawk helicopter pilot in Elizabeth City.
Vittone first served in the Navy, but when he wasn't allowed to transfer from the avionics field to the rescue swimmer assignment, he got out. He went to the Coast Guard . Then came the hard part - making it through rescue swimmer training.
The ratios vary, but in general fewer than half those who enter rescue swimmers school graduate. In some classes, only one has made it. In Vittone's class, five of six made it through the four-month school. Not that he didn't want to quit at times.
Vittone was promoted and was given awards for the 1994 rescue of a family of four . He appeared on the "CBS Evening News" and the Paul Harvey radio show. He was interviewed by several newspapers .
Vittone sat down in a small office at the Coast Guard Air Station last week to talk about his job, the training and the famous rescue.
Q. Your job designation is AST2. What does that mean?
A. AST2 stands for aviation survival technician. Certainly the hardest part of the job is rescue swimmer, but we have a regular day job when we're not standing duty to fix and maintain the survival gear - life rafts, life vests, the oxygen system on the C-130 aircraft, the seat belts, the seats, first-aid kits, our own personal rescue gear, our wet suits, the emergency locator beacons, the hand-held flares, the marine location flares, the basket. We work on all the survival gear.
At a unit that has two airframes, the H-60 and the C-130, it's a lot. Right now we're inspecting four sets of inflatable survival vests. It's not tough, but there's a lot of them.
Q. How many rescue swimmers are there here?
A. We're billeted for 11 swimmers. Right now we have seven of us actually standing duty. Others are on leave or grounded for medical reasons or something like that.
Q. Is there an age limit for a rescue swimmer?
A. There's not. I'm not the oldest one, but I'm close. I went to rescue swimmers school when I was 28 and they called me "pops." Most of them are 21 or 22.
At a certain point I think you decide for yourself that you might be too old. When these guys start creeping over 40, we all make enough rank that our jobs don't let us do that anymore. Once you make chief, you can still swim at some units but not all of them. There are a few chiefs out there at 42 and still doing it.
Q. Tell me about your training to become a rescue swimmer.
A. It's a lot harder to get the job than to keep it. The school is unbelievable. They told me it would be hard. I asked a guy, "How's it going to be?" He said, "You're in pretty good shape, but you'll be OK." What he should have said was, "Hardest thing you've ever done in your life. You're going to wish you were dead." It really was that bad. The guys at the school say we don't make rescue swimmers, we find them.
Q. What is it about it that makes you want to quit?
A. They beat you up every day in that they're going to make you do push-ups and sit-ups more than you want to and run further and faster than you want to. It's just physically tough.
The pool is a whole different world. You get to find out how to stay calm when you're not in control of your airway. I had never panicked in the water in my life, and it took my instructor 30 seconds to take me to full-arm panic - 200 pounds of instructor grabbed me around the head and told me I couldn't breathe, and I couldn't get away from him. It's funny, if I asked you to hold your breath for 30 seconds you could do it without having a hard time. But if I put my hand over your mouth, you want air right now. It's hard to be tired and out of breath already and then they say OK, now do this. That's when a lot of guys roll out.
Q. Was there any time where you felt like you might not make it?
A. Sure. About halfway through, I was going to quit. We did these things called flutter kicks. You lay on your back and kick your legs up and down 6 inches off the deck. It was a four-count exercise. That's OK, but we're doing 100 of them. I hated them. I was telling myself, if he makes us do flutter kicks one more time, I'm quitting. When he yelled out we were doing flutter kicks, I said, OK, well I'll do these, but if he does it again I'm quitting. Everybody goes through it.
Q. What's been the most unexpected part of your job?
A. On the rescue end of it, I was surprised how often people get into trouble on the water. How unexpectedly easy it is for them to get into trouble.
The ways people got into trouble was surprising. When we actually have to get in the water and effect a rescue, it's always surprising, no matter how much time you have on the way out to talk about what you're going to do, it is never what you end up doing because there is always one unaccounted-for variable that ends up changing your plan.
Sometimes it's the difference between what the call comes in as and what it ends up being. I've gone out for an amputated foot that ended up being a bite. A shark bite. We've gone out on a case that was supposed to be a broken leg that was a guy completely caught up in a winch and near death.
Q. You're trained in first aid, too?
A. We are nationally registered EMTs. So part of our job is to keep up all that training.
Q. How often do you get called out on a rescue mission?
A. We don't have as many as some other units, but it tends to be worse. We had the Bow Mariner. We had three swimmers in the water from different units on different areas of the wreck. We had the Sea Breeze, where they put 26 people on one helicopter. And then it will be quiet for a month and a half. Then it will all bust out. We have runs.
Q. What's been your most dangerous rescue?
A. The Marine Flower II, which was back in 1994. A family of four was 400 miles off the coast, and there was a mother, a father, a 13- year-old and a 4-month-old. That was during Hurricane Gordon. The winds were 70 knots. The helicopter is pretty good in constant winds. It's a real strong helicopter. I didn't notice it in the plane, but I certainly noticed it in the water. I'm sure the pilot noticed it.
When the weather got bad, all his wife could do was hold onto the baby. The 13-year-old was 13. So the only one left to handle this 64- foot boat was him. So after about a day of this, his wife called mayday. He canceled the mayday. Then after about 35, 40 hours he decided, I'm not going to make it.
It took 30 minutes to get them all into the helicopter. It took us 15 minutes to do it wrong. We got surprised. I said OK, "I'll swim to the boat and have them jump off into this raft." I got to the boat and a wave took the raft. I can't get to the boat, so they pick me back up. I get back in again. I'll climb on the boat, but the prop is turning right here. OK that's a bad idea, I'm not climbing onto the boat now.
So they threw a line off the back and I hung onto the line and they jumped off. I just hung on to the line to be close to them. When they jumped off, I swam to them and got them to basket. The woman and the baby went first. I got lucky. From the time they jumped in the water to the time they were in the helicopter was less than two minutes. I've been out here in training, and we can't pull that off in the river. It just worked out. It's a real fine line between working out and not working out.
Q. What advice would you give to boaters to help them avoid having to be rescued?
A. This is my own personal theory. For the most part boaters get in trouble for the same reason. They forget where they're going. They think they're going fishing or they're going to go sailing or just going for a day trip up the bay to the restaurant.
That's not where they're going. What they're doing is completely surrounding themselves with something that will not sustain their lives. Now go do that, and it changes the way they get ready. It changes the decisions they make. I'm lost. My engine won't start. Should I call? No I'll wait. If you think you are surrounded on all sides with something that's trying to kill you, maybe you should call now.
I'd rather go out there when it's daylight. They wait until it's dark. They're scared. We went on a case just a few weeks ago where the guy forgot to put the plug in the bottom of his boat. He's sinking. You're going out to surround yourself with something that's trying to kill you. You don't forget your plug when you think of it that way. Remember where you're going, and then go have some fun.
Regards,
Hist2004
Vittone, 38, was surprised at being called a hero then and still shrugs off the dangers and attention that come with being a rescue swimmer.
The job is tough. Rescue swimmers often are called out in the middle of the night at the height of storms and go into water with massive waves breaking over their heads to bring in boaters in trouble.
But - don't tell anybody - Vittone would do this job for free, he said.
"I like the water, and I like planes and the only way to mix the two without crashing was this job," Vittone said.
The Coast Guard has 240 rescue swimmers at stations on both coasts. Last year at the Elizabeth City Air Station, the Coast Guard carried out 260 search-and-rescue missions , said Lt. Brian Willson, an H-60 Jayhawk helicopter pilot in Elizabeth City.
Vittone first served in the Navy, but when he wasn't allowed to transfer from the avionics field to the rescue swimmer assignment, he got out. He went to the Coast Guard . Then came the hard part - making it through rescue swimmer training.
The ratios vary, but in general fewer than half those who enter rescue swimmers school graduate. In some classes, only one has made it. In Vittone's class, five of six made it through the four-month school. Not that he didn't want to quit at times.
Vittone was promoted and was given awards for the 1994 rescue of a family of four . He appeared on the "CBS Evening News" and the Paul Harvey radio show. He was interviewed by several newspapers .
Vittone sat down in a small office at the Coast Guard Air Station last week to talk about his job, the training and the famous rescue.
Q. Your job designation is AST2. What does that mean?
A. AST2 stands for aviation survival technician. Certainly the hardest part of the job is rescue swimmer, but we have a regular day job when we're not standing duty to fix and maintain the survival gear - life rafts, life vests, the oxygen system on the C-130 aircraft, the seat belts, the seats, first-aid kits, our own personal rescue gear, our wet suits, the emergency locator beacons, the hand-held flares, the marine location flares, the basket. We work on all the survival gear.
At a unit that has two airframes, the H-60 and the C-130, it's a lot. Right now we're inspecting four sets of inflatable survival vests. It's not tough, but there's a lot of them.
Q. How many rescue swimmers are there here?
A. We're billeted for 11 swimmers. Right now we have seven of us actually standing duty. Others are on leave or grounded for medical reasons or something like that.
Q. Is there an age limit for a rescue swimmer?
A. There's not. I'm not the oldest one, but I'm close. I went to rescue swimmers school when I was 28 and they called me "pops." Most of them are 21 or 22.
At a certain point I think you decide for yourself that you might be too old. When these guys start creeping over 40, we all make enough rank that our jobs don't let us do that anymore. Once you make chief, you can still swim at some units but not all of them. There are a few chiefs out there at 42 and still doing it.
Q. Tell me about your training to become a rescue swimmer.
A. It's a lot harder to get the job than to keep it. The school is unbelievable. They told me it would be hard. I asked a guy, "How's it going to be?" He said, "You're in pretty good shape, but you'll be OK." What he should have said was, "Hardest thing you've ever done in your life. You're going to wish you were dead." It really was that bad. The guys at the school say we don't make rescue swimmers, we find them.
Q. What is it about it that makes you want to quit?
A. They beat you up every day in that they're going to make you do push-ups and sit-ups more than you want to and run further and faster than you want to. It's just physically tough.
The pool is a whole different world. You get to find out how to stay calm when you're not in control of your airway. I had never panicked in the water in my life, and it took my instructor 30 seconds to take me to full-arm panic - 200 pounds of instructor grabbed me around the head and told me I couldn't breathe, and I couldn't get away from him. It's funny, if I asked you to hold your breath for 30 seconds you could do it without having a hard time. But if I put my hand over your mouth, you want air right now. It's hard to be tired and out of breath already and then they say OK, now do this. That's when a lot of guys roll out.
Q. Was there any time where you felt like you might not make it?
A. Sure. About halfway through, I was going to quit. We did these things called flutter kicks. You lay on your back and kick your legs up and down 6 inches off the deck. It was a four-count exercise. That's OK, but we're doing 100 of them. I hated them. I was telling myself, if he makes us do flutter kicks one more time, I'm quitting. When he yelled out we were doing flutter kicks, I said, OK, well I'll do these, but if he does it again I'm quitting. Everybody goes through it.
Q. What's been the most unexpected part of your job?
A. On the rescue end of it, I was surprised how often people get into trouble on the water. How unexpectedly easy it is for them to get into trouble.
The ways people got into trouble was surprising. When we actually have to get in the water and effect a rescue, it's always surprising, no matter how much time you have on the way out to talk about what you're going to do, it is never what you end up doing because there is always one unaccounted-for variable that ends up changing your plan.
Sometimes it's the difference between what the call comes in as and what it ends up being. I've gone out for an amputated foot that ended up being a bite. A shark bite. We've gone out on a case that was supposed to be a broken leg that was a guy completely caught up in a winch and near death.
Q. You're trained in first aid, too?
A. We are nationally registered EMTs. So part of our job is to keep up all that training.
Q. How often do you get called out on a rescue mission?
A. We don't have as many as some other units, but it tends to be worse. We had the Bow Mariner. We had three swimmers in the water from different units on different areas of the wreck. We had the Sea Breeze, where they put 26 people on one helicopter. And then it will be quiet for a month and a half. Then it will all bust out. We have runs.
Q. What's been your most dangerous rescue?
A. The Marine Flower II, which was back in 1994. A family of four was 400 miles off the coast, and there was a mother, a father, a 13- year-old and a 4-month-old. That was during Hurricane Gordon. The winds were 70 knots. The helicopter is pretty good in constant winds. It's a real strong helicopter. I didn't notice it in the plane, but I certainly noticed it in the water. I'm sure the pilot noticed it.
When the weather got bad, all his wife could do was hold onto the baby. The 13-year-old was 13. So the only one left to handle this 64- foot boat was him. So after about a day of this, his wife called mayday. He canceled the mayday. Then after about 35, 40 hours he decided, I'm not going to make it.
It took 30 minutes to get them all into the helicopter. It took us 15 minutes to do it wrong. We got surprised. I said OK, "I'll swim to the boat and have them jump off into this raft." I got to the boat and a wave took the raft. I can't get to the boat, so they pick me back up. I get back in again. I'll climb on the boat, but the prop is turning right here. OK that's a bad idea, I'm not climbing onto the boat now.
So they threw a line off the back and I hung onto the line and they jumped off. I just hung on to the line to be close to them. When they jumped off, I swam to them and got them to basket. The woman and the baby went first. I got lucky. From the time they jumped in the water to the time they were in the helicopter was less than two minutes. I've been out here in training, and we can't pull that off in the river. It just worked out. It's a real fine line between working out and not working out.
Q. What advice would you give to boaters to help them avoid having to be rescued?
A. This is my own personal theory. For the most part boaters get in trouble for the same reason. They forget where they're going. They think they're going fishing or they're going to go sailing or just going for a day trip up the bay to the restaurant.
That's not where they're going. What they're doing is completely surrounding themselves with something that will not sustain their lives. Now go do that, and it changes the way they get ready. It changes the decisions they make. I'm lost. My engine won't start. Should I call? No I'll wait. If you think you are surrounded on all sides with something that's trying to kill you, maybe you should call now.
I'd rather go out there when it's daylight. They wait until it's dark. They're scared. We went on a case just a few weeks ago where the guy forgot to put the plug in the bottom of his boat. He's sinking. You're going out to surround yourself with something that's trying to kill you. You don't forget your plug when you think of it that way. Remember where you're going, and then go have some fun.
Regards,
Hist2004