INTO THE STORM
Journalist Tristram Korten’s recently published book Into the Storm describes the sinking of two ships in the Atlantic Ocean during the Category 4 Hurricane Joaquin in 2015 and how their respective captains dealt with extreme circumstances, one successfully and the other catastrophically. The book also closely details the role a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter rescue team—more specifically, the efforts of swimmer Ben Cournia, helicopter pilot Rick Post, flight mechanic Joshua Andrews and commander Dave McCarthy—played in saving the 12 crew members of the freighter Minouche after they’d abandoned ship for a liferaft in the midst of a veritable meteorological melee. The following excerpt has been edited for space, and captures the essence of the daring rescue. In doing so, it emphasizes the level of character and commitment that stands behind the motto of the rescue swimmers at the Coast Guard’s Aviation Technical Training Center at Elizabeth City, North Carolina: “So others may live.”
Before would-be rescue swimmers can call themselves U.S. Coast Guard aviation survival technicians, they must first survive the training school. It’s not uncommon for two-thirds or more of a class to drop out. Officially, the Coast Guard states that the attrition rate is 50 percent. Anecdotally, it is often much higher. Ben Cournia, for instance, entered with a class of nine. Three graduated, one of whom had started in another class of 12. When all 11 of his original classmates dropped out, this one remaining recruit transferred to Cournia’s class. A recent class of 16 graduated four swimmers; in another, only five of 24 candidates made it through the process.
The physical conditioning is relentless. Cournia recalled waking up at 5:00 A.M., eating only a small breakfast (“otherwise you’d throw up”), then running, running, running: sprints, 12-mile runs, running through waist-high water. Then lunch, and swimming, swimming, swimming: 500-yard sprints, 500 yards underwater (in 25-yard intervals), 3,000 yards of laps. Add to this the survival technique classes, which the recruit cannot fail if he has any hope of graduating. In these classes, swimmers are confronted with simulations—a downed pilot wrapped in a parachute, a crew from a sunken fishing boat—and must figure out the rescue on the fly. There are “water confidence drills” in which an instructor swims up to you and basically tries to drown you. The school boasts fans that can replicate the winds in a Category 1 hurricane, a wave-making machine and speakers that can blare thunder-claps at tremendous volume.
As relentlessly exhausting as the physical training is, the mental tests might be worse. Instructors repeatedly try to undermine the swimmer’s confidence, constantly encouraging him to quit, telling him he’s not good enough.
“Your body can adapt physically,” explained Senior Chief Scott Rady, who coleads the school today with Cournia’s former supervisor John Hall. “But mentally, that’s the one you have to overcome.”
In fact, most of the candidates who don’t make it through the program “self-select out,” as Rady put it. Another percentage can’t continue because of physical injuries. Many of these candidates do return and eventually graduate. (This may be the reason the Coast Guard cites a 50 percent attrition rate.) Since the program started almost 30 years ago, a total of 940 aviation survival technicians have made it through. Today there are 360 rescue swimmers spread out among 26 Coast Guard air stations. Three of them are women.
Now, as Cournia peered down at the roiling sea from the open door of the Jayhawk, he was relying on every shred of his training and conditioning to override his body’s normal response to danger. He had to go where it was not logical to go. He sat on the edge of the metal deck, his legs out the door, his eyes fixed on the liferaft bobbing in the waves below. He reached up and snugged his mask to his face, then clamped his teeth around the snorkel’s mouthpiece. Joshua Andrews checked the cable clipped onto the swimmer’s harness.
“All right, swimmer’s at the cabin door,” Andrews reported into the cabin’s radio. “Ready for harness deployment of the rescue swimmer.”
“Roger, you may begin hoist,” Rick Post responded.
From his seated position, Cournia gave the thumbs-up and then pushed himself out the door into the air.
“Swimmer’s going out the cabin door.” While the pilots struggled to hold the helicopter in a hover, Andrews would be their eyes and ears for what was happening below.
As Cournia descended on the cable, he twisted in the wind. The water beneath him heaved back and forth. Big, long swells surged and then relaxed. Steeper waves crested and broke, causing the surface to erupt in a foamy effervescence.
“Swimmer’s on the way down,” Andrews said. “Swimmer’s in the water. Swimmer’s away. Swimmer’s okay. Clear to move. Back and left 30. Retrieving hoist.”
“Roger,” Post responded. “Back and left.”
When Cournia hit the water the sea felt reassuringly warm, but the strength of the
