Meet our high-f lying first responders

Often, the most dangerous moment in a drowning rescue is when the valiant red and yellow chopper appears on the horizon, and the terrified person it is racing towards thinks they can stop fighting. Their feet have been thrashing in the ocean for far too long. They are numb from the cold. Their lungs ache, and they have nothing left in the tank. Rescue aircraft officer Geoff Jansen says you can literally see their urgency drain away when they know help is near. “You see them getting pummelled around, their adrenalin is so high, then you get there and all of a sudden they relax. That’s when you start to see that initial …” he mimes someone sinking below the surface. “They’re just fatigued, absolutely fatigued, and all of a sudden you’ve got to get into the water straight away.”

But he’s never lost a soul that way. The rescue choppers’ three-person crews are finely calibrated teams trained to be their best in critical situations. While Geoff works the winch, rescue crew officer Nick Pavlakis is lowered into the freezing ocean where he puts his capable arms around the shivering, submerged human and