*** Contains multiple spoilers. ** Walker celebrates the Coast Guard SAR (Search and Rescue — not to be confused with SARS) teams that operate in Alaska's forbidding winters. These people risk their lives to save those who have usually made some really dumb decisions. Flying at any time in Alaska is difficult because of the terrain and sudden weather changes, but virtually no one flies at night. SAR teams are often called out at night and usually in the worst weather. Sensory deprivation is common, especially in the whiteout conditions of blizzards, when pilots can only depend on their fluorescent radar screens and instruments to keep them from "a controlled collision with terrain." The other members of the team, a flight mechanic, a rescue swimmer, and a navigator often make the difference between life and death. One such team was returning to base after having successfully rescued the survivors of a plane crash. The pilot was a newcomer to the area and had just made a ninetydegree course correction when "his navigator, who was seated behind him, suddenly inquired, 'Hey, is there a reason we're flying at only sixteen feet?'" About half the book is dedicated to a truly extraordinary rescue. A fishing boat with five crewmen had been caught in a fierce, very fierce winter storm. (The crew had warned the captain to leave the area earlier, but he wanted to collect as much of his fishing gear as possible and ignored their warnings, a decision that would cost him his life.) Soon their boat was being tossed around by one-hundred-foot seas and nasty rogue waves that could come from any direction. The wind chill approached 100 degrees below zero. The boat soon foundered, but the men were able to don their survival suits, and to tie themselves together to the EPIRB, a floating emergency beacon that had a strobe light and radio transmission that could be picked up by satellite. They struggled to stay alive in the freezing water until the first SAR chopper arrived. It was pitch dark, and only the strobe light of the beacon helped the SAR team to find them. The Coast Guard team maneuvered for almost two hours, fighting against tremendous winds and waves that would occasionally tower over the helicopter, forcing them to rapidly rise before being inundated. The basket kept being blown toward the back of the chopper at risk of becoming entangled in the tail rotor blades. Finally, low on fuel and with the flight mechanic, whose job it was to control the metal basket they were trying to lower, suffering from hypothermia, they were forced to turn back. A second rescue chopper was dispatched to no avail. The waves were so high and the wind so strong that getting a basket anywhere near those in the water was impossible. Again they were forced to return to base. By this time, the men had been in the water for many hours and one man had slipped off the rope and died. The boat's skipper was unconscious, being held up by one of the crewmen, ironically a former coast guardsman, someone familiar with survival techniques. By the time a third chopper arrived, the situation was desperate. A C-130 was flying high overhead to relay messages, since the atmosphere was so turbulent their signals could not get through. This SAR team, benefiting from the insights gained information relayed by the first rescue crew, brought extra flares and an extra crewman to help with the winch. The base commander, the only other available pilot, was flying in the co-pilot's seat. After seeing how difficult things were for the pilot to try to maintain position, he hit upon an inspiration. He would manipulate the collective, the device that controls the helicopter's altitude, while the other pilot flew the machine. It went against everything they had been taught and trained, but was precisely what was needed. It relieved the pilot of one extra duty, and he could now concentrate on the directions of the flight mechanic. Tragically, as they lifted two of the survivors from the water, the skipper, who had regained consciousness and was being held on to the side of the basket, fell off and drowned. His body was recovered later by a rescue swimmer from yet another chopper. Three men were saved. The story of the rescue and the odds against it was spellbinding. I could not put the book down.
