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Swells, then it was just chaos for them. greg can t believe what he s seeing. the pounding waves swallow the coast guard vessel flipping it and tossing both men into the ocean. the boat had an air pocket under it, luckily. we were able to get out and swim to the bow. i had to get back to that boat. the men make it out of the water but are now stranded on the overturned hull. once we got into that sort of trouble, we didn t know how we were going to get out of it. we were fighting for our own life then. as the capsized boat bobs wildly, the men hang on for their lives. just then a chopper from the west pack helicopter rescue service arrives. eddie bennett is the crew chief for the organization in 2012. the conditions were far from ideal. we had six to seven meter waves breaking on shallow sand banks. ....
Right, forward and back, waves breaking on it, the helicopter coming down and being blown by the wind and at the right time lining up so the skid is on the right position so the person on the boat can grab on and climb into the helicopter. that s a challenge to do. particularly since he doesn t have a crew on board. we all had our hearts in our mouths. we expected the chopper to lose control and crash as well. as the pilot approaches, collin grabs the skid, but he slips and falls into the sea. tom tries again. with mere feet separating the helicopter from the boat s hull, collin steps up to safety. tom brings the chopper around to pick up the other man, but he can t quite see the height of the waves below them. when he come in low enough, i managed to climb on board after the second attempt. a small wave lifted up the hull as the chopper moved in. ....
Must have been horrendous for them. eddie s mentor tom ward is piloting the west pack chopper. another news station has hired tom to fly a cameraman out to get shots of the rescue. when he takes off, tom isn t planning to get involved and doesn t have a winch or trained rescue personnel on board. but when he gets to the scene, tom has a tough choice to make. they would have had to make some decisions about whether they were going to try and save these people or not. they were in a terrible position there. breaking water, huge seas still very, very dangerous conditions for the crew of the boat. with no time to waste, tom lowers his chopper. we thought this is crazy. we didn t expect it. this boat is moving up and down at least 15 feet. and this chopper is coming in to basically try to pick us up. it s an extremely risky move. to do that with the boat moving up and down, left and ....
the conditions were far from ideal. we had six to seven meter waves breaking on shallow sand banks. must have been horrendous for them. eddie s mentor tom ward is piloting the west pack chopper. another news station has hired tom to fly a cameraman out to get shots of the rescue. when he takes off, tom isn t planning to get involved and doesn t have a winch or trained rescue personnel on board. but when he gets to the scene, tom has a tough choice to make. they would have had to make some decisions about whether they were going to try and save these people or not. they were in a terrible position there. breaking water, huge seas still very, very dangerous conditions for the crew of the boat. with no time to waste, tom lowers his chopper. we thought this is crazy. we didn t expect it. this boat is moving up and down at least 15 feet. and this chopper is coming in to basically try to pick us up. it s an extremely risky move. to do that with the boat moving up and down, left ....
Lining up so the skid is on the right position so the person on the boat can grab on and climb into the helicopter. that s a challenge to do. particularly since he doesn t have a crew on board. we all had our hearts in our mouths. we expected the chopper to lose control and crash as well. as the pilot approaches, collin grabs the skid, but he slips and falls into the sea. tom tries again. with mere feet separating the helicopter from the boat s hull, collin steps up to safety. tom brings the chopper around to pick up the other man, but he can t quite see the height of the waves below them. when he come in low enough, i managed to climb on board after the second attempt. a small wave lifted up the hull as he chopper moved in. the helicopter hits the boat. i thought we re going to see another crash here in a second. there was a desperate lunge and hanging from the helicopter. ....