Safety personnel practice water rescues
By ERIC LINDBERG — April 28, 2009
Victor Maccharoli - The US Coast Guard cutter Blackfin took part in the Oceans Operations Exercise 2009 along with other local agencies in a simulated jet crash off the Goleta Pier. The victims were played by UCSB students.
A slew of rescue swimmers, emergency personnel and medics participated in an annual ocean water rescue drill off the coast of Goleta Beach yesterday, simulating the crash of a regional jet.
Faced with the scenario of a jet carrying 33 people that went down after hitting a bird, rescue crews deployed an array of equipment that ranged from jet skis and paddleboards to helicopters and ocean patrol vessels.
The large-scale drill brought in safety agencies from Ventura to Vandenberg Village, and included many local fire departments.
“Training is everything if you’re a firefighter,” said Capt. David Sadecki of the Santa Barbara County Fire Department.
A large focus of the drill centered on improving communication and coordination between the various agencies.
“We’re getting everyone together and making sure we’re on the same page,” Sadecki said. “…Everyone has a slightly different way of doing things.”
Safety personnel replicated the downed aircraft by strapping together a handful of small rafts. After loading up a group of volunteers from UC Santa Barbara and the Red Cross, water rescue crews towed the rafts to a location several hundred feet from the Goleta Pier.
In the meantime, firefighters and rescue workers suited up in wet suits and protective gear, launched jet skis and started setting up a triage tent to treat the “victims.”
Once the drill started, a flurry of activity could be seen in the air and water. Jet skis raced toward the crash scene, while a County Fire helicopter dropped a few rescue swimmers into the water.
Rescuers transferred the most severely injured victims — those outfitted with a red armband — to the Coast Guard cutter Blackfin, where they received treatment before being ferried to the shore.
Other yellow-tagged and green-tagged victims, representing less severely injured patients, were taken to the pier or the beach. Rescue workers carried them up the sand to the triage tent, where members of the county’s Medical Reserve Corps began tending to their wounds.
Helicopter operators from the County Fire Department practiced hoisting rescue swimmers back into the air, while the orange Coast Guard chopper carefully lowered a rescue basket containing a “victim” to the deck of the Blackfin.
Sadecki said the main purpose of the drill is to keep rescuers sharp and well-versed in the skills needed for a major water rescue.
“If it happens for real, we’re going to be able to act quickly and react without thinking,” he said.
Although the rescue teams had their equipment in place along Goleta Beach prior to the drill, Sadecki said that equipment is typically stationed nearby anyway, resulting in a quick response to any major ocean emergency.
Getting to victims quickly is critical, he said, particularly in cold, windy weather with strong ocean currents.
“A lot of it is the elements,” he said. “Hypothermia is the big issue once the plane lands in the water safely.”
He pointed out the crash-landing of a large jet in the Hudson River earlier this year as a prime example of a successful water rescue.
“It was up to the firefighters and the rescuers in the boats to get those people to safety,” Sadecki said.
http://www.thedailysound.com/News/042809waterdrill 
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