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Rescue at sea
By Amber Peabody
This document was published online on Thursday, December 04, 2008
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| Ron Martindale of Camas, Wash., (center), stepfather of deceased “Katmai” crewman Jake Gilman, thanks helicopter pilot Lt. Zach Koehler (left) and rescue swimmer Petty Officer Dave Coats of the Coast Guard after a press conference Oct. 24 at Kullis Air National Guard Base in Alaska. (Photo by Erik Hill/Anchorage Daily News) |
Coast Guard helicopter pilot Lt. Zach Koehler and his crew anxiously scanned the turbulent Alaskan waters below.
Somewhere, braving ocean swells two stories high and gale force winds, were 11 fishermen from the Katmai, a commercial fishing vessel that hours earlier had sunk.
Suddenly the flight mechanic spotted a life raft with four figures who started waving.
There were survivors.
“Knowing that if you hadn't been there they weren't going home to their family is sobering.” said Koehler, 31, a 1995 CHS graduate. “You train all the time and to actually see the training go into effect and pull some guys out the water is so satisfying.”
The 93-foot boat disappeared early Oct. 22 near the Aleutian Islands in Alaska after it was battered by storms and turbulent seas. A search began before daylight and one body was discovered, causing Koehler and his crew to believe their's would likely be a recovery mission.
Then 15 hours after the distress signal from the boat went out, they spotted the life raft.
“After the initial shock of actually finding someone we turned around and saw guys waving from the raft,” Koehler said. “They looked to be in good shape after 15 hours of being hammered by the weather and 60-foot waves.”
During the night 50-knot winds caused large swells, which often tore the life raft away from the survivors. The fishermen survived 43-degree water as they fought their way back to the raft again and again. There had been six on the raft but two were eventually lost to the sea.
“It was like a three-story building coming down on you. Waves knocked them out and they'd have to crawl back into the raft and wait for it to toss them out again,” Koehler said.
A rescue swimmer was lowered from the H-60 Pave Hawk helicopter and helped the first survivor into the basket.
“There were 40 mph winds,” Koehler said. “The stiff wind made flying interesting. Contending with 25-foot swells you have to fly in sync with the wave to keep stress off people.”
With the first fisherman safely in the helicopter, the rescue swimmer turned to go back to the raft, but it had already drifted 200 yards away. The helicopter lowered its basket to take him down current and let the raft drift to him. The crew repeated the process three more times, getting all survivors aboard in 30 minutes.
Koehler's crew saved four; seven were already lost, including a man from Montana.
Rescued were two men from Anchorage, the captain from Massachusetts and a man from Shoreline, Wash.
“We were able to recover everyone without incident,” Koehler said. “Just to see relief on their faces when we pulled them out and knowing they got to go home is an exciting feeling.”
He was planning to fly the survivors to Adak, Alaska, but the men said they felt fine and didn't want to waste the searchers time as they hunted for their friends.
“I talked to them and they were all coherent and alert,” he said. “They didn't need immediate attention so we decided to keep them on board and search for more people.”
After searching for several more hours no other survivors were located. It was determined that the engine room flooded and the boat lost steering as a North Pacific typhoon blew through the area.
Koehler previously helped search for survivors when the Alaska Ranger went down last March. Forty-seven people were saved by other Coast Guard crews in that mission.
This was the first time Koehler's crew had rescued men at sea.
(Amber Peabody can be reached at amber@codyenterprise.com.)
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