Wear Your Life Jacket!

Coast Guard Training Missions--A coast guard rescue, with an unlikely victim. Reporter Matt O'Donnell took part in a breath-taking Coast Guard training mission. From the Journal of Matt O'Donnell:

The Coast Guard says last year between Memorial Day and Labor Day at the Jersey Shore in South Jersey there were 17 recreational water fatalities (most of those accidents were boating related). This year since Memorial Day, not including Wednesday's accident in Middle Township, there have been 15 recreational water fatalities.

I was on a coast guard vessel, zipped into a wetsuit, prepared for my mock rescue operation. I give the thumbs up, and then i'm jumping into clam creek, just off the Absecon inlet in Atlantic City.

The coast guard wanted to show you what would happen if I was actually in trouble. Maybe my boat sank, maybe I was thrown overboard. No worry, an HA-65 Dolphin helicopter is on its way, for a speedy rescue.

John Williams/Rescue Diver: "We have the survivor in sight, we get overhead, and the hoist operator will con us in close to the survivor."

John williams has been rescuing imperiled people for the coast guard for more than six years. His job is to jump from the chopper into the water, swim to where I am, and reassure me everything will be just fine.

John Williams: "I just jump freely from the aircraft, I'll swim over, I'll give the survivor a brief, tell him kinda what's going on, put him at ease."

But even in this controlled situation, it can get rough. The rotor on the helicopter overhead was whipping around at speeds up to 100 miles per hour. Even with goggles on, the winds and the splashing water made it difficult to open my eyes.

The basket is lowered from the helicopter, the rescue swimmer puts me in it, and within 20 seconds, I'm suspended from the chopper, 100 feet above the water, inches below the spinning rotor.

John Williams: "I'd call it controlled chaos, I'm comfortable with what I do, I'm dealing with someone who's not normally in the water, they're in the water because of a tragic situation." The rescue swimmer isn't so lucky, he has to ascend on a hook. And within minutes, we touch down at the coast guard station, i'm still shivering from the chilly water.

The main lesson the coast guard wants you to learn, is something you may not have even noticed. I was wearing a life jacket the whole time.

John Williams: "The life jacket is the most important thing, whether someone is knocked unconscious when they fall out of the boat, it'll keep 'em floating."

Rescuers say if more boaters wore life jackets, there'd be less tragedy at the Jersey Shore.

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Author: 6 ABC-AP