From eagle attacks to life-saving boots to new uses for littoral combat ships — maybe — here’s a round up of recent Coast Guard odd news. Let’s start with a report from Alaska: Coasties were attacked by an eagle in the Dutch Harbor Post Office in Unalaska. Eagle attacks are apparently not that rare for people living up there, see here. Then there was the man charged with allegedly attacking a Coast Guard boarding officer in San Francisco. The man was also charged with allegedly making a false distress call. He claimed that a Coast Guard boarding team would be…
Browsing: Rescue swimmers
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Rescue swimmers in the Coast Guard have to be a tough lot. That’s even more true for female rescue swimmers. There are only four of them in the service, and that gives you a good indication of their caliber. In April, we wrote about Aviation Survival Technician 2nd Class Jaime Vanacore, a rescue swimmer who was trying out for American Ninja Warrior (she got invited to Las Vegas for finals, by the way) and now Chief Aviation Survival Technician Karen Voorhees has made history by becoming the first female rescue swimmer in the Coast Guard to make chief. She was…
[HTML1] It’s not often that we get to experience a close-up view of a Coast Guard rescue, but a video released by the Coast Guard gives us exactly that, showing a North Carolina man being plucked from the sea March 6 off Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Rescued was Patrick Small, of North Carolina. Two other men, Walter and Steve Tate, also of North Carolina, remain missing. The Coast Guard called off the search for them the next day. The men were aboard the fishing vessel Seafarer when it became disabled, the Coast Guard reported in a news release. The Seafarer’s sister…
With 1,134 votes, the Coast Guard’s winner for 2012 Video of the Year shows boats being pelted by huge waves as Coast Guardsmen duck behind the boat’s dashboard to avoid catching the full force of the water. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLIMy-0p9tk&list=PLgOje37c-b1McebLFEauWZU9EDnD5FJzt&index=7[/youtube] The winner was announced yesterday on Coast Guard Compass, the service’s blog. The top video, titled “Surf’s Up!”, was compiled from first person footage shot by Coast Guardsmen from Station Coos Bay in Oregon. The second place video, which received 933 votes, showed a day in the training of a Coast Guard rescue swimmer, and the third place video with 561 votes…
Ready for some real-life spirit spots? The Coast Guard’s contest for best rescue video of 2012 begins Saturday, but if you can’t wait until then, the service released a compilation video of footage from the top 10 rescues of the year as a sneak peek on Monday. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuwB7OOR2Uk&list=PLgOje37c-b1McebLFEauWZU9EDnD5FJzt&index=1[/youtube] Still have a craving for intense rescues on the high seas? The Coast Guard will post a new video each day from Saturday through the end of the year to their Youtube page. You can vote for your favorite on the Coast Guard’s Facebook page by liking the video. The winner will…
No matter what the service, military rescue swimmers are a pretty remarkable bunch. In addition to being skilled at their normal rating duties, they’re able — and willing — to be lowered into some pretty hair-raising situations that most normal folks would regard as out of the realm of possibility. The Atlantic waters looked to be fairly calm when the dock landing ship Gunston Hall conducted a man-overboard drill last week, as you can see: That’s a long way down, though. In addition, the water temperature was on the cool side. According to the National Oceanographic Data Center, the average…
