Since I am a pilot, I love You Tube videos about aircraft and flying. So, I was watching a Coast Guard helicopter rescuing the residents of Sanibel Island in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian.
Sanibel is a beautiful island on the western shore of Florida just off the coast of Fort Meyers. It is a very flat island and they got a lot of rain, so the streets had about two to three feet of water everywhere, making transportation impossible and the houses pretty much unlivable. Also, the causeway, which is the only access to the island, was severely damaged. So, the streets were full of very distressed folks with their dogs and laptops trying to figure out what to do.
And here is a bright red Coast Guard helicopter hovering about a hundred feet up with a Rescue Swimmer in the street talking to the folks, calming them down and assuring them that everything was going to be OK. Rescue Swimmers are very highly trained and conditioned operators who jump out of helicopters into very cold and choppy water and swim toward what is usually a thrashing panicked victim. Once there he attaches some flotation and calls for a harness, maneuvers the person into it and sends them up to the helicopter. Very arduous work.
This guy very patiently helped people climb into the lowered wire basket with their doggies if necessary and their laptop, hooked everything up securely and made sure that his charge was settled in for the ride up. Then amid all of the tension, noise and rotor wash he would hand each person a foam ear plug one at a time.
It brought tears to my eyes and I thought what a wonderful, compassionate action. The folks in the basket had this amazed look on their face like, “Really” I just lost my home and all my worldly possessions and you are not only risking your life to rescue me and my dog but you are worried about damage to my hearing?
What a world we live in, God bless us all.
