N.C. Flight Crew Trains to Save Themselves

Jan. 26--NAGS HEAD, N.C.

Nothing but a pair of black boots jutted above the pool's surface, with bubbles popping up next to them.

Down below, Dare County paramedic Ashley Johnson hung upside down, strapped inside an aluminum frame simulating a helicopter cockpit.

An observer might have thought she was in trouble.

But the boots disappeared beneath the water just before she sprung upward with a splash and sucked in a deep breath.

Johnson was taking part in "dunker" training Tuesday at the indoor pool at Holiday Inn Express. The five pilots and 11 paramedics of Dare County's helicopter rescue service learned how to rescue themselves in case their aircraft crashed into water.

Johnson acknowledged a twinge of panic at first.

"You wouldn't think so, but it's really disorienting," she said.

And it's not a far-fetched possibility. Water covers three-quarters of the 1,500 square miles of Dare, the state's largest county. Sounds, rivers, hundreds of creeks and the Atlantic Ocean surround the beach communities that stretch for 80 miles from Duck to Hatteras Village.

Some 300,000 tourists -- many elderly and with health problems -- crowd the county's stretch of the Outer Banks on summer days. Traffic can clog the roads, impeding ground-based emergency vehicles. The call for help often goes to the flying rescuers.

Helicopters are top-heavy, with the engine, rotor and transmission attached to the roof. They flip upside down when landing or crashing in water, said Chad Jones, chief pilot for Dare MedFlight. The crew can get disoriented and actually swim toward the bottom believing they are headed for the surface, he said.

Johnson practiced a specific sequence of actions to survive a real crash.

She braced herself for impact as she sat upright, strapped into her seat. When the instructor flipped her upside down, she put her hands to her head as a reference point to find the emergency jettison handle which removes the window seal.

She pushed out the window before unlatching her seat belt and swimming free of the aluminum frame. She closed her eyes as part of the drill to keep out fuel that might saturate the water in a real scenario.

"When you are under stress, you must rely on muscle memory," said Jennie Collins, director of Dare County Emergency Medical Services.

The last time a Dare County rescue helicopter crashed was in 1989 when the aircraft struck a radio tower wire in heavy fog.

Dare MedFlight declines to launch roughly 30 times a year because of weather out of about 360 calls for rescue, Jones said. Winds blowing 35 knots or with sudden gusts of 20 knots above the sustained speed make flying dangerous. Visibility must be up to 3 miles with a cloud ceiling of at least 800 feet during the day and 1,000 feet at night.

Bad weather anywhere along the expected flight path can shut down the operation.

And any member of the three-person crew can call off the flight, Jones said. They call it "three to go, one to say 'no,'" within the industry, he said.

The crew is not told the circumstances of the emergency before taking off, Collins said. They make the decision to go based only on flying conditions and not on the people needing help, she said.

"That could tug on the heartstrings," she said.

The crew wears survival vests that double as inflatable flotation devices. An attached air bottle provides enough to breathe for a minute or two underwater.

The county contracted with Survival Systems USA of Groton, Conn., for $8,000 to conduct the day-long training.

"This is worth it just because we fly over so much water," Johnson said.

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