When panic floods the mind, everything else empties out.
I'm stuck inside a simulated helicopter, sitting at the bottom of the Dimond Athletic swimming pool in Anchorage. As I struggle to unbuckle my seat belt, strapped upside down and submerged in salt water, no thoughts filter through the wall of terror growing taller with each unsuccessful yank of the belt.
No thoughts, save one: You're going to die!
I'm taking an eight-hour survival course with Learn to Return, a local business specializing in survival-skill instruction. Today's mission is learning how to survive a helicopter crash in water. I'm in the class with four oil workers, all of whom regularly shuttle over the sea via choppers. The occupational hazard of a lifetime, I think.
The Learn to Return people say they flip an 80 percent failure rate (a.k.a. death) into an 80 percent success rate. So far, on my first attempt underwater, I'm in the failure category.
After a few seconds, the instructor frees me -- I didn't even know he was there, floating just a few feet away -- and I come up for air.
He gives me a sympathetic look. I'm disappointed in myself, having let panic overtake me. My desperate tugging on the belt caused it to jam. Despite warnings that it would happen, I did it anyway.
So voilà, just like that, I'm dead. All because I pulled on my seatbelt too damn hard.
I write a lot about Coast Guard rescues and outdoor accidents in Alaska. But now I'm face to face with the reality of how we -- that is, humans -- function in situations gone bad. Often, we don't really function, we just react on a rote level. Without any training, all I have is animal instinct, which obviously isn't doing me any favors.
Escaping from the underwater enclosure is perhaps the most frightening experience I've had in recent years. And to think, some people do this every day.
Reacting 'like robots'
Darren Hicks is one of those people. Hicks works for the Coast Guard Kodiak air station as an aviation survival technician, second class. Among other things, he's a rescue swimmer -- the person who gets lowered onto a sinking boat or into the water during a rescue operation.
Search and rescue is the 25-year-old's passion. "I can't see myself doing anything else," he says. "I think that I'm better in the water than I am on land."
I'm slightly relieved to hear that Hicks has experienced his share of panic during 18 months of training to become a rescue swimmer. "I definitely recall a few times when I thought I was going to die in the pool," he says.
"But I'm here," he laughs.
Training to become a rescue swimmer was "brutal," Hicks says. Only two of the 12 people in his class graduated. And a lot of the stress was mental. Endless memorization and unexpected training exercises -- such as being called out to perform a rescue while students took their post-class showers - pushed them to their limits, he said. But it also created a rote memory for rescue that carries Coast Guard crews through the most difficult operations.
"We're like robots," he says.
The training course with Learn to Return relies on the same idea. By the time we head to the pool, I've tried to absorb four hours of classroom instruction. Overall, the concepts are simple -- instructors repeat the few simple steps to escape, and then repeat them again. And again. Yet when we're in the pool, I can't seem to remember the steps. I can't remember anything. I'm staring blankly at the instructor, and my brain is refusing to let in any new information.
So I return to the chair, and the instructors tell me to go through the steps before they flip the contraption -- a helicopter chair and helicopter door -- over. Review the steps once, then again. And again. And then I'm ready, I'm underwater, and I successfully escape from the death trap.
You didn't die! My brain screams. But then I'm told to get in the chair again. And again. Oddly enough, the situation isn't becoming any easier, nor any less stressful. Every time I get back into the executioner's chair, panic fills my brain, and I'm back to the beginning.
Meanwhile, an oil worker for BP from the Virgin Islands, Nigel Cosby Sr., seems completely unfazed by the experience. When he emerges from the water, he's not gasping for air and wide-eyed like me. He looks like he just took a dip in the pool, like it's some lazy Saturday and he's about to go drink a margarita.
I'm envious of his calm demeanor. "Stay focused," Nigel tells me, but it's easier said than done.
Again to my relief, Hicks agrees that emergency situations never get any easier. For the Coast Guard, the crews never know exactly what situation they're getting into until they arrive on scene. Even after countless rescues, Hicks has fleeting moments of fear. But "even if I'm nervous, I've got to show that I'm not," he says.
Challenges of search and rescue in Alaska
Kodiak Air Station's rescue coverage stretches from the Western Aleutians to Cordova, and all the way up to Barrow and Nome -- a huge swath of land for the 150 members of the Kodiak rescue crews, capable of performing four rescues simultaneously. When Hicks first saw the base's range of responsibility, he thought, "Wow, we're doing all this?" Just this month, the Kodiak air station has performed rescues in Adak, far out on the Aleutian chain, twice. The station performs search and rescues several times a week, at least.
Hicks arrived in Kodiak 18 months ago. He calls Alaska the "big leagues" of U.S. search and rescue. Alaska's unforgiving landscape, its extreme cold, vicious wind and snow, and the utter remoteness of most locations make for treacherous operations.
And then, accidents usually occur "when it's dark and stormy out," Hicks says, sending search and rescue crews into some of the worst of Alaska's weather.
The flight to and from remote locations is often "the most nerve-racking part," Hicks says. When it's dark, "you're 100 feet over the water, and you don't know where the mountains are."
He recounts one particularly rough rescue, 110 miles offshore in the Arctic Ocean, during a blizzard, of course. A barge radioed in an emergency – the ship's captain was suffering from a heart attack.
The Coast Guard crew was already in Barrow, luckily, and began their flight over the rugged ocean waters. "It's like the wild west out there," he says. Complete desolation. Their radio calls went unanswered. They finally made contact with the ship, arrived on scene, and positioned the helicopter to lower.
The barge was carrying drill bits for oil companies that Hicks describes as "massive -- the size of a house." He nearly smashed into the bits while being lowered to the ship. Once he finally touched down, he struggled to get his feet under him, as the barge swung in rough ocean currents and water heaved up over the sides of the vessel. Once he got his footing, he weaved through the chains holding the drill bits in place to reach the ship's crew.
Meanwhile, the helicopter had to move up and away from the ship to avoid the heavy machinery on board. He successfully located the captain, who was thankfully doing OK, and got him hoisted up onto the helicopter.
My heart races as I listen to his story. I think of how simple my training is -- in a 70-degree pool, surrounded by instructors who ensure my safety. And yet, I'm terrified the entire time. At the end of the day, when I successfully graduate from the course, I am overcome with waves of relief. Time to go drink a margarita.
I'm thankful, both that brave people like Hicks exist in the world, and that I will hopefully never, ever be in a situation where I need to use the skills that the patient team at Learn to Return have taught me. But if I do find myself in a helicopter crash over Alaska's frigid waters, I know that somewhere in my brain, the muscle memory is waiting, ready for action.
Contact Laurel Andrews at laurel(at)alaskadispatch.com and follow her on Twitter @Laurel_Andrews