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OFF THE FIRST COAST — The same Coast Guard crews that plucked survivors from rooftops after Hurricane Katrina hit are now protecting the First Coast. And they took First Coast News along for hours of intensive training.

In so many disasters, it’s the U.S. Coast Guard that comes to the rescue. Becoming rescue-ready takes strength, determination, and guts.

The same guys who swarmed the skies after Hurricane Katrina now stand guard here — watching over your family on the First Coast.

This week, we headed out to sea aboard a Coast Guard Dolphin helicopter. It was an exclusive trip on a training mission just miles off Atlantic Beach.

AST2 Brian Goodbody, a veteran rescue swimmer, leapt out of the helo’s open door as the craft hovered about 10 feet above the water. Fighting the waves and wash he swam to a stand-in victim. He linked himself to the practice victim, then snapped them both onto a metal cable strung down from the helicopter above.

With a single signal, the careful dance of hoisting began. A pair of pilots held the helo in the perfect place above the swells. A flight mechanic confidently — but cautiously — controlled a winch, reeling in the cable as it swung below in the wind.

Within five minutes of Goodbody’s splashdown, both he and his victim were safe, back onboard the Dolphin.

They used old skills, honed over years of Coast Guard hoists. But evident there, as well, were new ideas — picked up in the flooded streets of New Orleans last year.

“I think there was a lot of learning from there… just the experience for years — that we’ll take out of that. Just us talking in the shop,” Goodbody said.

“Something that stood out in my mind is seeing a swimmer on the roof with a crash axe,” he said, remembering video of a Coast Guard rescue swimmer at work that was broadcast in the days after Katrina hit. “He grabbed the crash axe on his way out — just thinking outside the box — went down there, and cut them out with this,” he said, holding up the small axe that helicopter crews carry onboard their aircraft.

AST3 Matt Laub and his crew saved 151 lives that week — darting like a dragonfly between rooftops. “Pilots were learning new techniques of hovering near power lines. And flight mechs got great training, trying to put some swimmers down in different precarious places,” he said.

In all, helicopters from Air Station Savannah — the same air station that protects the First Coast — saved 351 lives after Hurricane Katrina.

In a flooded city, or near a fishing boat, out on a mission, every move is made a certain way. The Coast Guard put me in their training pool in Savannah to show you why.

“Petty Officer McConnell is going to demonstrate a front head-hold release,” Goodbody said, providing my only warning that I was about to get jostled and flung around until I cooperated.

Floating in the pool, I played a typical victim desperate for dry land.

“The first thing they want to do is grab you. You’re their life preserver,” Goodbody said. So I followed those orders. As swimmer Stu McConnell swam toward me, I latched on to him and wouldn’t let go. McConnell slipped under the surface.

Moments later, in a single motion, he spun around, gained an advantage over me, and twisted my entire body. I swirled, face-first, underwater. In an instant, I was upside-down and below the surface. I let go — exactly what McConnell intended.

“Nine times out of ten, the victim is going to let go as soon as you take him underwater,” Goodbody explained.

And at the air station, we got a rare look at a rescuers’ tradition. Hung high along the shop wall are life vests from countless sinking boats and stranded victims. Each is marked with the rescue crew’s names, a description of the crisis they jumped in to solve, and how many lives they saved.

“I always try to think — what if this was my family? You’ve got to be the best scanner, you’ve got to be out there searching nonstop. You can’t look away. I mean, it’s tough,” Goodbody said.

After Hurricane Katrina, it wasn’t just the helicopters that got a workout. Including all the boats and other assets the Coast Guard has, they saved more than 30,000 people. Imagine that — in small groups, rescuing three times the population of Fernandina Beach.

Boats are the Coast Guard’s bread and butter. Based in Jacksonville is almost a small fleet, and each vessel has its own rescue role.

Expert pilots and spotters in 25-foot small boats will pull you right from a river, or from your flooded neighborhood. The person at the helm steers the boat to just the right spot where the engines’ idling brings the victim right alongside. A pair of rescuers reach in and pull the person onto the deck.

They turn to bigger craft for bigger emergencies. On their 47-footer, rescuers train constantly for a critical throw. They can heave a line — with just a know at the end — within arm’s reach of a victim 100 feet away from their boat.

Rough seas call for the cutter — the Kingfisher. She can work 150 miles off the First Coast. “We’ll go out routinely for four to five days straight… we’ll run, obviously, during the day. And then at night, we’ll have our searchlight on,” said LTJG Gavin Garcia, the Kingfisher’s Commanding Officer.

When the Kingfisher runs a rescue, it’s quite a ride. A small boat slides out the back and rushes over for a hands-on recovery.

With the exception of helicopter carriers, every Coast Guard vessel is built to save your life. And every one of the men and women in the service wakes up each morning with that same goal.

“It’s not always the big hero stuff — jumping out of a helicopter and saving people. But when it happens, it’s just the greatest feeling,” Goodbody said.

Each year, the Coast Guard works around 500 cases off Northeast Florida. On average, those missions end up saving more than 100 lives a year