"Coast Guardsman swims a mile in choppy seas to save four fishermen, one at a time"

2015-07-24T15:22:19-04:00

From: The Washington Post
--
A Coast Guard spokesman called it “an amazing story,” a “monumental effort,” of the sort he’d never heard or seen before.

It started with an emergency call to the Coast Guard on marine radio at 1:40 a.m. Tuesday morning. The crew of the Jamie K, a 52-ft. fishing vessel, had run aground about 250 yards off Cape Blanco, Ore., lost power and was taking on water. The four fishermen on board were abandoning ship and and headed for their life boats.

That’s a routine call for the Coast Guard. They chopper over to the scene, lower a hoist and a swimmer and one by one, bring up those stranded in the water. But there was nothing routine about what happened next.

The Coast Goard MH-65 Dolphin helicopter took off from Coast Guard Station North Bend, about 60 miles north of Cape Blanco on the Pacific. It arrived at the scene fine, and began what seemed at first like a standard rescue, lowering Petty Officer 2nd Class Darren Harrity carefully into the water.

But then something went wrong and they couldn’t get the hoist back up. “A mechanical failure,” Chief Petty Officer David Mosley, a Coast Guard spokesman in Seattle told The Post.

“I think the pilot said, ‘Harrity, you’re going to be doing a lot of swimming tonight,” Harrity told KPTV.

And he did.

He swam 250 yards over to the lifeboat, said Mosley, in five-foot waves, water already slick with fuel, the air thick with fuel.

He got the first man to leave the life raft, grabbed him with one arm, and with the other and the aid of his fins, swam 250 yards back to shore.

Then he swam back to the lifeboat, another 250 yards, grabbed the second fisherman and hauled him back to shore.

Then it was back to the lifeboat, another 250 yards, and back to shore with the third man. Then he returned to the lifeboat, yet another 250 yards to get the fourth fisherman, and safely returned him to shore.

Only then did he stop swimming.

“It was just me and my muscles and that’s it,” Harrity told the TV station.

It was “just a heroic effort,” said spokesman Mosley.

It was also what Harrity had been training for since the age of 19, and not without some trauma.

Harrity grew up in South Florida and “fell in love with the water,” as he tells it in an essay he wrote for the Web site, Shallow Water Blackout Prevention, becoming an avid surfer, swimmer and spear fisherman.

He dreamed of joining the Coast Guard while in college and trained rigorously in a rescue swimmer program, which requires “immense underwater confidence.” His normal swim workout, he said, was a lot of laps, followed by eight “50-meter underwater laps with no breath,” and then “then 60 seconds treading water between laps for rest.”

During one of his underwater training exercises in 2007, he blacked out. A swimmer in the adjacent lane noticed something was wrong and pulled him out, as Harrity tells it. But he almost died. He had no pulse. And all he remembered was waking up in a hospital five days later.

“I was thankful to be alive, he wrote,”but my dream of joining the Coast Guard looked grim. When I was finally able to work out and go for a run I got full-body cramps.” But he said, he “stayed positive and worked hard,” and a year later joined the Coast Guard, graduating with honors as a helicopter rescue swimmer.

And that was great news Tuesday morning for Jake Leach, and the other fishermen on the Jamie K.

“Thank you everyone for your support and concern about the boat the the crew,” he wrote on his Facebook page. “Glad everything went the way it should and that everyone made it out in one piece.

As for the boat, it’s gone. “Sure will miss the old girl,” he wrote.

Mosley couldn’t find enough words to describe his awe at Harrity’s extraordinary rescue. “It’s an amazing story,” said Mosley, a “monumental effort,” “an amazing kind of feat. But that’s what our rescue swimmers train for.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/07/22/after-a-chopper-malfunction-a-coast-guardsman-swims-a-mile-on-his-own-to-rescue-four-fishermen/

A ‘monumental’ rescue: Coast Guardsman swims a mile in choppy seas to save four fishermen, one at...

A Coast Guard helicopter pilot told Petty Officer Darren Harrity he was "going to be doing a lot of swimming tonight."

Response by SSgt Alex Robinson made Jul 24 at 2015 3:23 PM

2015-07-24T15:23:29-04:00

This is the definition of a real hero. Others before self!

Response by SGT Roberto Mendoza-Diaz made Jul 24 at 2015 3:28 PM

2015-07-24T15:28:22-04:00

What a great story of heroism.

Response by SN Greg Wright made Jul 24 at 2015 3:38 PM

2015-07-24T15:38:07-04:00

Isn't their motto (rescue swimmers) 'That others may live?'.

Pretty much exemplifies that.

Response by Sgt David G Duchesneau made Jul 24 at 2015 3:48 PM

2015-07-24T15:48:43-04:00

A true hero and a great credit to his Unit! I salute him!

Response by CPO Jon Campbell made Jul 24 at 2015 8:20 PM

2015-07-24T20:20:56-04:00

The amount of strength and endurance it takes to swim that much for that long is incredible. I hope he gets a lifesaving medal for this one.

Response by Capt Richard I P. made Jul 24 at 2015 8:26 PM

2015-07-24T20:26:15-04:00

Motivation. Give that man a medal.

Response by PO2 Jonathan Scharff made Jul 25 at 2015 10:02 AM

2015-07-25T10:02:21-04:00

Sepmer Paratus Coastie Sepmer Paratus! Well done my friend...well done indeed!

Response by PO3 Private RallyPoint Member made Jul 28 at 2015 6:46 AM

2015-07-28T06:46:30-04:00

No words..... Only awe.....!

Response by PO2 Jeffery Marcussen Sr made Dec 31 at 2015 6:25 PM

2015-12-31T18:25:08-05:00

A heart felt congratulations a snappy salute and a loud proud SEMPER PARATUS ship mate. i second the medal recommendation.

Response by PO2 Katie Benson made Dec 31 at 2015 9:06 PM

2015-12-31T21:06:18-05:00

Great job shipmate!

Response by SCPO Private RallyPoint Member made May 7 at 2018 9:01 PM

2018-05-07T21:01:48-04:00

Bravo Zulu to one very commonplace Coast Guard Aviation Rescue Swimmer.

Response by LT Brad McInnis made May 7 at 2018 11:19 PM

2018-05-07T23:19:29-04:00

Awesome job!

Response by SCPO Private RallyPoint Member made Jun 13 at 2018 11:36 AM

2018-06-13T11:36:29-04:00

Coasties DO this every day. This IS what we do. And we ARE the best at it.