Texans Can Swim?! USCG Helicopter Rescue Swimmer Nate Feske, 165 lbs of Twisted Steel and Sex Appeal.

 

 

 

“This is ridiculous, why are your palms sweaty? Why are you rehearsing your questions? You worked and lived with him for over three years for God’s sake!”, these inexplicable thoughts rushed through my cerebellum as I dialed the phone. RING RING, my mind wandered again: “I haven’t spoken to him in nearly a year. Is it too audacious to call up a best friend just to conduct a written interview?”. I had left to travel the world and to attend college, he had chosen to continue his military service as a Coast Guard Helicopter Rescue Swimmer. RING RING, perhaps we were different now…

        

“Vinny! How the hell you been little Canuck!?”, exclaimed the Texan man to the Canadian. “Now what in tarnation is a Frenchman that couldn’t speak English without an accent when I met him doing now a days?!” Immediately upon hearing Nate’s familiar country accent, I was relieved to somehow know our relationship had not deteriorated.

        

Nathan Feske was born, bread and water fed in Santa Fay, Texas and every ounce of him always screams a proud America. With a dip under his lip, he’s always searching for a place to spit yet would never through a fit. In fact, you couldn’t meet a more peaceful soul than Nate.

        

“Six feet, two inches and 165 lbs of twisted steel and sex appeal,” as the handsome chin-assed-man always boasts. Don’t let that fool you though, that skinny redneck could lift a truck. And of course, as any respectable southerner would, a truck is what he drove;

     

“Still driving that four-wheeled oil burning cash cow?”, I inquired.

        

“You mean Clifford The Big Red Dodge!?” chortled the young rescue swimmer, “nope! Just got a new RAM 1500… same truck different year. I drover up from Houston before the flood happened.”

        

“Speaking of Houston, I heard you deployed there to assist with hurricane Harvey. Did you volunteer for that or were you voluntold?”, I snickered.

        

“It was pretty gnarly dude. Right before the storm hit, the command goes: “hey, who wants to do hurricane relief?”, and you know me, I raised my hand right away.”

        

In December of 2013, Petty Officer 3rd Class Nathan Feske graduated the 871’st rescue swimmer ever in the nation. He was two places before my lucky number came up three months later which meant Nathan became my mentor. After 4 months of being fed with a water hose, he departed the grueling North-Carolina training center to guard the nation’s coasts. This honor meant he would be tasked with free falling out of helicopters into dangerous seas to aid individuals in distress in the maritime environment. Now, he had just been tasked with serving one of the nation’s biggest search and rescue cases since hurricane Katrina.

        

“What were your rescues like down there?”, I ask in the same manner a gawking Patriots fan would ask Tom Brady a question.

        

“Well, as soon as I got to Houston, our crew’s tasking was simple: ‘Aid people in distress’. That proved really easy because there was so many people on the roofs are only issue was who to pick. Within minutes of being airborne, we found this big family stuck on the roof, but as we were making our approach we noticed another family barely clinging onto an 18-wheeler. So I deployed down out of the chopper and found out that two elder ladies were also trapped within the truck. I got em out and I used the basket to pick both of them up and took them back to the evac point. Then we went back for the rest of the family on the truck. I managed to put a lady, her daughter and two infants in the basket and sent them up. Then it was the husband’s turn. After that a boat came wiping around the corner on the flooded streets. So, I decided to tow each member of that first family we’d spotted on the roof. I towed em one at a time through the water and over to the boat. I was then able to hoist back up to the chopper to bring the 18-wheeler family to the evac point.”

        

“Damn!”, is all I could manage to exclaim in shock.

        

My military friend continued: “Then, we immediately got tasked with the same neighborhood again to assist an older lady needing meds. After hoisting her off her roof in a basket, the crew left me on scene so they could go refuel.”

        

“Wait, so ‘where’ were you on scene?”, I interjected.

        

Nonchalantly, he explains: “I was just in the hood walking/ swimming around. It would fluctuate, I’d be able to walk a bit, then the water level would suddenly get to be over my head”.

        

“Woooow!”, I gawked once again like a stargazed child. “Wasn’t there debris in the water though?”

        

“Yeah there was all kinds of nasty sh** in there and people everywhere. So I started getting a head count and decided to start triaging everybody. You know; the basics you and I’ve learned: Who’s injured? Who’s elderly? Of course, children were number one.”, Nathan explained, “At one point I met these people paddling around in an inflatable raft and they told me about a dad and an injured child a few blocks down. I had them show me their location. Once there, I found the father and the kid stranded on the roof of their truck. The dad was too short to carry the kid out while staying above water, so I threw the kid on my shoulder and we went to dry land”. Luckily, I saw another Coast Guard helicopter flying by so I vectored them in to pick them up and decided I’d might as well hoist myself into the helicopter too. As I was going up into that other helicopter, I noticed my chopper returning from their refuel. So I guess I kinda ditched my crew…oopsy poopsy.”

        

I cracked up: “Whaaaat dude!?! That’s awesome! Your crew must have been like: “bro what the f**** man? We need a swimmer over here!”

        

“Hahaha, yeah pretty much, but I could fit a lot more people in my new helicopter which was a Jayhawk rather than the tiny HH-65 Dolphin I was in initially. There were two other rescue swimmers in the Jayhawk, so they would deploy to perform the rescue and I would provide medical care to the patients in the helo. That was my first morning…” recalled the young Petty Officer.

        

“Jeeeez”, I exhaled barely knowing how to relate to my old co-worker anymore.

        

“Then came the middle school. Hundreds of people were there needing assistance. It was all hands-on deck as the national guard, the Navy and the Coast Guard all worked together to get everybody evacuated back to downtown Houston. I don’t even know how many people we hoisted over those several hours but by 8pm my shift was done. And that was only day one.”

       

 “Christ! So how many people dyou save that day?”, I questioned in wonder.

        

“Damn, I don’t know, let’s see…1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 12 not including everyone from the middle school,” recollected the young man.

        

“That must have been hard seeing your hometown in that condition,” I generically stated like some wannabe therapist.

        

“Yeah man, I mean I grew up in that area. I knew those streets. Those were my people,” described Nate with a heavy-hearted voice. “I even saw a girl from my high school. I was like: “Hey what’s up?”, she was like: “OMG! This is crazy.” It was kinda funny cause she’s a nurse and she was getting out of her shift exhausted and I was like: “well, I just started mine so, good morning!”. All and all though it was devastating seeing my hometown underwater. I mean a lot of the houses were even on fire from the electrical systems being flooded.”

        

“Must have been scary man”, I sighed like a worried protective mother.

        

“Yeah…..yeah it was,” his voice somberly reminisced. “Especially in the town of Belmont where a dam broke. The weather was a constant downpour which made for the worst visibility flying. So, we’d navigate very cautiously, always communicating throughout the crew while watching out for radio antennas and towers. I had to deploy for a lady actively having a seizure. We hoisted her successfully but then they needed to hoist me back up too cause I had her meds and I was the only one trained to tend to her seizure. It was a really high hoist though, 120 plus feet, so the cable was swaying like crazy! On the way up, I got slammed into a tree and broke a bunch of branches. My ankle’s killing me now.”

        

“Yeah well welcome to the Rescue Swimmers hurt ankle club bud. Did you manage to hold onto her meds though? I asked secretly knowing it was unlikely he had.

        

“Hell yeah I held on to em f***ers! Of course I did!” Nate snapped back to my surprise. “There was a little tree bark added to her prescription but I held onto em”, he quick wittedly added.

        

“Who was the flight mechanic manning the hoist?”, I mumbled wanting to know who’d swung my boy into an oak like a wrecking ball.

        

“Ashley Leppert, haha you remember her don’t you Vince?”, mocked the southerner.

        

Not wanting to get into that topic, I quickly changed the subject: “so did any of the rescues beat your Niagara Falls case?”

        

“Nah man, hoisting two people 700yds upstream of one of the world’s biggest falls, right before their boat goes over, was sporty enough for one lifetime buddy,” he disclosed in a salty-sailor manner.

     

“Did you ever imagine you’d live such a crazy life back when you first enlisted bro?” I reminisced.

                    

“Hell NO! I just knew I wanted to serve in a branch where I could save lives rather than take them. I barely thought I’d survive swimmer school though. You remember don’t ya? I got my 6th NO GO (a NO GO is a failed rescue scenario) the 4th week of school in an 18-week course. A 7th NO GO and we’d get the boot, but I never liked numbers and I suck at math, so I just kept going,” laughed the now most decorated junior Rescue Swimmer in the Coast Guard.

It was this optimistic attitude combined with his sense of humor which drove the unstoppable 25yo to such success even despite his past struggles. In his teens, Nathan found his older sister unconscious on the floor one evening. Nate’s compressions after compressions of relentless CPR tragically never brought her back to life. The young man’s story was similar to so many of his rescue swimmer brothers who’d all seemed to be trying to save lives for the one they’d once lost. Never endlessly fighting to rescue someone they once couldn’t. Our similar pasts bonded us. Despite these inner scars, this kind-hearted soul somehow always found the courage to exude love with every step he took.

        

As I was getting ready to hang up, my mentor selflessly scolded me one final time: “Hey don’t forget now, you stood side by side with me. Don’t forget to tell em kids that. Don’t forget to add that in your article you hear? Nobody likes a modest Mandy Vinny”

        

“Your expressions are weirder than Weird Al Yankovic and never cease to astonish me Petty Officer Feske. On that note, I must bid you adieu my friend.”

 

“Alright, I love you bud,” concluded Nate.

 

“Love you too man,” I sincerely replied as always.

 

As the phone rang silent, I thought of the word “hero”. Today, too often is this word frivolously thrown around. A hero, does not need to jump out of a helicopter in a red wetsuit, a hero does not need to save the lives of strangers, nor must he be physically strong. A hero requires only one item: a heart that perseveres. If anyone were to deserve to bear the name of “hero”, I know of no other than my friend: Nathan Feske.  

 

-RSM Vince

Be Better.