Zee French SAR

[Gatordev]

I'm not a huge fan of picking apart post-mishap/accidents that are YT, especially when the frame of the video is so zoomed in, but this is interesting to watch. Not as much for the aircraft part, but the rescue swimmer.

Once he's cut and swimming to shore, both he and the survivor are in the most awkward positions. The swimmer can barely make way because of his position, and the survivor, while floating on the strop, is in the prime position to take a face-full of water (or a rock) into his airway. Just interesting to see the comparison and to see how well the CG and Navy rescue swimmers are taught to control the survivor.

I'm also not really sure what the point was of going down into a low hover over the swimmer/survivor and making their life even harder, but whatevs.

 

[croakerfish]

I'm also not really sure what the point was of going down into a low hover over the swimmer/survivor and making their life even harder, but whatevs.

Ouch, wire strike protection FTW. My guess is they didn't have a swimmer radio and wanted to see how they fared after getting cut.

 

[RobLyman]

Interesting. Did voltage fire the hoist CAD, the hoist operator cut them, or rescue swimmer open the gate? Maybe the powerline cut the hoist cable? To me it looks like just as the helo was wondering into the wires, the swimmer reached up to the rescue device with his hand.

Week after next the Department of the Army Evaluation and Standards (DES) guys come out to show us the Army's new method for doing hoist rescues, including dynamic hoisting...ie lower the rescuer down the hoist prior to arriving overhead the survivor. We'll see how that goes.

 

[Griz882]

Overall there are some lucky people in that video. It looks to me like the strike cut the hoist cable and I wonder (if this is what happened) how much it was dragging the swimmers under? Stunning loss of situational awareness! The hoist operator is lucky he wasn't fried as well.

 

[Pags]

I'm not a huge fan of picking apart post-mishap/accidents that are YT, especially when the frame of the video is so zoomed in, but this is interesting to watch. Not as much for the aircraft part, but the rescue swimmer.

Once he's cut and swimming to shore, both he and the survivor are in the most awkward positions. The swimmer can barely make way because of his position, and the survivor, while floating on the strop, is in the prime position to take a face-full of water (or a rock) into his airway. Just interesting to see the comparison and to see how well the CG and Navy rescue swimmers are taught to control the survivor.

I'm also not really sure what the point was of going down into a low hover over the swimmer/survivor and making their life even harder, but whatevs.

Swimmer and survivor may have been injured or, at the very least, startled and bruised by the fall. One of my squadrons had two AWs (swimmer +simulated survivor) fall 70' from the helo. Both ended up with broken backs, one so severe that they eventually medically discharged him.

 

[Gatordev]

Swimmer and survivor may have been injured or, at the very least, startled and bruised by the fall. One of my squadrons had two AWs (swimmer +simulated survivor) fall 70' from the helo. Both ended up with broken backs, one so severe that they eventually medically discharged him.

No doubt, especially since it looks like the survivor was a pretty big dude. Admittedly I'm looking at this from a very well-trained organization's perspective (and a bit from a School House perspective), but that swimmer isn't really doing any stroke that's going to save them.

And while it's of course not the survivor's fault, when I see him in that position, I just keep hearing the line, "I only doggy-paddle," in my head. Especially since what I hear is with a French accent.

Week after next the Department of the Army Evaluation and Standards (DES) guys come out to show us the Army's new method for doing hoist rescues, including dynamic hoisting...ie lower the rescuer down the hoist prior to arriving overhead the survivor. We'll see how that goes.

Is this like Direct Deployment or something different?