Beating Back Death, From Sky Into Sea

Beating Back Death, From Sky Into Sea
Virginian-Pilot
March 9, 2004

Why would a man jump from a perfectly good helicopter into

spume-streaked 30-foot waves?

Or, as happened Saturday, lower himself into an ocean slick with noxious chemicals in the tar-black night?

I wondered about this after last weekend's deadly tanker explosion off the Eastern Shore and the dramatic salvation of six crew members by a Coast Guard rescue swimmer.

We're so focused on military deeds in Iraq these days that it's easy to overlook the courage regularly displayed by this fearless - some would say crazy - orange-clad clan here at home. But as Saturday's incident proves, valor doesn't always wear camouflage and combat boots.

On a run from New York to Houston, the Bow Mariner, a 570-foot tanker carrying 3.5 million gallons of industrial ethanol, erupted in a fireball off the Maryland-Virginia coast. After issuing a frantic Mayday call, the mostly Filipino crew abandoned ship. Within an hour, the upended Bow Mariner slipped beneath waves coated with a caustic ethanol rainbow.

Less than two hours after the call, Coast Guard rescue swimmer Dave Foreman dropped from a helicopter into, as he put it, the "mass chaos" of a 44-degree debris-studded sea "that smelled exactly like rubbing alcohol" to seek survivors.

After finding the life raft and its six occupants, immobilized by hypothermia, Foreman, dizzy and disoriented from breathing chemicals that burned his face, still managed to save each of the helpless six. He lifted them onto a basket that was hoisted to the hovering Elizabeth City-based helicopter. Three other sailors died; 18 are still missing and presumed dead.

"It was pretty scary," admitted Foreman, who ordered his reluctant colleagues to put him in the water. "It was as bad as I've ever seen it."

For someone like me, who aspires to dog-paddling, it's difficult to fathom why anyone would choose this line of work, especially for the $24,000 salary and two pairs of running shoes each year that Foreman, a four-year veteran, earns. I wouldn't do it for $1 million and the entire contents of Imelda Marcos' closet.

Ask the rescue swimmers, and you'll get truth cloaked in modesty, often with a refreshingly cheeky sense of humor. "I was in the Navy before this," said Mario Vittone, a Florida native who's been a rescue swimmer for 10 years. "I liked the aircraft and I liked the water, but you don't normally get that combination without crashing.

"It's a noble job. I'd stand duty for free. Besides, we get lots of really cool gear."

Foreman, a native of Cary, N.C., said, "There's no better feeling than seeing someone rescued. Saving a life is the ultimate thing you can do."

There are 320 Coast Guard rescue swimmers - three of whom are women - around the country, ready at the squawk of a radio to head into the roughest of waves to render assistance.

And they risk their lives for any caller, from the injured mariner whose craft has capsized to the meathead boater with enough room on his Visa card for a new vessel and a copy of "Sailing for Dummies."

That no rescue swimmer has ever died on a search-and-rescue case is a testament to just how good they are.

What goes through their heads as they're hitting the water? "The Shepard's Prayer," said one. "Oh Lord, please don't let me screw up - Alan Shepard, Mercury 3."

Since Sept. 11, the word "hero" has been thrown about like so much loose change, and now has about as much currency. We've applied the term equally to firefighters who rush into burning buildings and to Jessica Lynch, a truck-accident victim with a jammed rifle. We've vulgarized a word reserved for the extraordinary.

But if the term should apply to anyone, it should be to the neoprene-clad fellow who suddenly drops from the sky into roiling seas to rescue the stranded sailor, the heart attack victim, or the boater clinging to a life jacket and a slim thread of hope.

In the mold of genuine heroes, most rescue swimmers are uncomfortable with the word. Says Vittone, "There are only two prerequisites for us to get in the water: We know you're in trouble and we know where you are. If those two are met, we're going.