Winchman - Rescue Swimmers in The Media

Rescue Swimmers in The Media

The release of the 2006 motion picture The Guardian, starring Kevin Costner and Ashton Kutcher, introduced people to this small group of elite rescue workers.

A rescue jumper/swimmer needs to jump from the helicopter because the victims are not able to get into the basket due to wave action.

A rescue swimmer saves Tom Cruise's character Maverick in Top Gun. The rescue Swimmer's name is John Baker, a former Navy SAR School Instructor at NAS North Island in the early 1980s.

On the History Channel reality show Top Shot one of the marksman is US Navy Rescue Swimmer Jamie Franks.

U.S. Coast Guard Rescue Swimmers attracted international attention most recently during the rescue operations following Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, Louisiana and the surrounding areas. It was reported that in the first five days following Katrina, Coast Guard crews performed more than 33,500 rescue and hoist operations of Katrina victims stranded on rooftops and in flood water. This was reportedly more than the Coast Guard had rescued worldwide in over 50 years. President George W. Bush awarded participating members of the Coast Guard a Presidential Unit Citation and ribbon for their response to Hurricane Katrina.

While Katrina brought domestic and international news coverage to Coast Guard rescue swimmers and their crews, their story was first shown on television in a series of 1999 specials on Discovery Channel, Coast Guard: Rescue Swimmers and Coast Guard: Helicopters to the Rescue. Along with covering the history and the demanding training rescue swimmers must complete, the specials also feature dramatic on-scene footage of several heroic rescues.

The most viewed rescue swimming event in the media was a marine rescue done by rescue swimmers during the Webtel.mobi Intercontinental Challenge on 25 November 2009. The Webtel.mobi Intercontinental Challenge was the first attempted intercontinental flight between Africa and Europe by man using jetwings, and it was broadcast live worldwide on television. Swiss pilot Yves Rossy, the person who had accepted the Webtel.mobi Intercontinental Challenge, had to ditch into the North Atlantic ocean midway through the 30 mile flight from Morocco to Spain, after his wing was destabilized by a large cumulonimbus cloud. After being located, an emergency marine rescue was undertaken by rescue swimmers live on television, with the Associated Press reporting that more than two billion people had viewed the rescue worldwide on the day of broadcast. The rescue swimmers for this event were Stuart Sterzel and Garth Eloff, both former Special Operators from Special Forces. Stuart Sterzel was also the CEO of Webtel.mobi, the company staging the event. A third standby rescue swimmer was John Brokaar, also a former Special Operator from Special Forces. The rescue took place in extremely dangerous conditions in the North Atlantic, with the downed pilot being located in less than 15 minutes after his ditched entry into the ocean, in an area where the average time for locating a person in the water is four hours. Once located, he was extracted from the water in a flawless marine rescue. The success of the rescue was credited to the rescue rehearsal carried out on the day before the event, which was also televised worldwide as it happened. The rehearsal took place during a rough sea state and high winds, and was done to confirm that the rescue swimmers would be able to carry out an effective rescue in the dangerous conditions in the area, which include very strong rip currents, high swells and the cold water temperature in the North Atlantic. On the day of the rehearsal the rough sea state and high winds forced Sterzel and Eloff to exit into the North Atlantic ocean from the skid of a Bell helicopter at a height of over 40 feet, which causes significant water entry shock on entry. The water entry shock was reduced only by their succeeding in entering the water at an optimal entry angle despite the high wind and an unstable exit platform. This was attributed to their previous training and experience.