So Others May Live with Mike Romano

This episode is sponsored by Culligan Water

In the latest episode of "The Adrenaline Zone," hosts Sandy Winnefeld and Dr. Sandra Magnus delve into the world of Coast Guard rescue swimmers, exploring their intense training, life-saving missions, and the mental and physical endurance required for their extraordinary role. Their guest, Mike Romano, a 20-year Coast Guard veteran, shares his remarkable journey from a collegiate athlete to one of the elite rescue swimmers in the military. His story is a testament to the power of dedication, resilience, and the willingness to push beyond perceived limits.

Mike Romano's path to becoming a rescue swimmer was unconventional. Growing up in Tucson, Arizona, far from any coast, Mike was an active child involved in various sports. His journey took a pivotal turn one night while watching a storm rescue on TV. Inspired by the daring rescue, he decided to pursue a career in the Coast Guard, despite having no prior knowledge of the service. This decision marked the beginning of an adventurous and challenging career.

The training for Coast Guard rescue swimmers is notoriously rigorous. Romano explains to Sandy and Sandra that the attrition rate for the program is exceptionally high, with more people washing out than in the elite Navy SEAL training. The physical demands are immense, involving relentless running, swimming, and strength training designed to push candidates to their limits. The goal is to prepare them for the chaos and stress they will face during actual rescue missions.

One of the critical aspects of rescue swimmer training is the ability to operate under extreme stress. Romano describes how the training physically exhausts candidates to simulate real-life scenarios where they must think clearly despite fatigue. This mental toughness is crucial when making split-second decisions during life-and-death situations. The motto "so others may live" encapsulates the selflessness and determination that drive these elite rescuers.

Romano shares a harrowing rescue mission off the coast of Atlantic City, New Jersey, with Sandy and Sandra. Faced with 12-foot seas and freezing temperatures, Romano had to adapt quickly to the challenging conditions. When the cable hoisting a man with a compound fracture snapped, plunging him into the icy waters, Romano's training and instincts kicked in. Despite the chaos, he managed to locate and save the man, demonstrating the incredible skill and bravery required for such rescues.

The podcast also highlights the importance of teamwork in rescue missions. While the swimmer operates alone in the water, a team in the helicopter provides essential support. Romano explains how effective communication and coordination are vital for the success of each mission. The ability to adapt to changing situations and make quick decisions ensures the safety of both the rescuer and the person being saved.

Romano emphasizes the significance of having no backup plan when pursuing a challenging goal like becoming a rescue swimmer. He advises aspiring swimmers to focus entirely on their objective, as having a fallback option can make it easier to quit when the going gets tough. His story underscores the value of perseverance and unwavering commitment in achieving extraordinary feats.

Throughout his career, Romano has experienced the pride and fulfillment that comes from saving lives. Each successful rescue is a testament to the training, teamwork, and determination that define the Coast Guard rescue swimmers. While the job is fraught with risks and challenges, the opportunity to make a difference in someone's life is incredibly rewarding.

In conclusion, this episode of "The Adrenaline Zone" offers an inspiring look into the world of Coast Guard rescue swimmers. Mike Romano's experiences highlight the physical and mental demands of the role, the importance of teamwork, and the extraordinary commitment required to succeed. His story serves as a powerful reminder of the impact that dedication and resilience can have, both in personal achievements and in the lives of others.

If you enjoyed this episode of The Adrenaline Zone, hit the subscribe button so you never miss another thrilling conversation, and be sure to leave a review to help get the word out to fellow adrenaline junkies.

Transcript

Mike Romano: It's very easy to quit, especially for doing something as challenging as being a swimmer with the physical and mental side of the job. So don't have a backup plan. Have this be your one and only goal. Work hard. Just know as physically exhausted as you think you are, you can do more. Just willing yourself to get to that next step, to never give up, to be out there to help people out in their worst day ever.

Dr. Sandra Magnus: If you think dangling from a wire beneath a helicopter at night and in the middle of the ocean in high winds and over rough seas and then plunging into icy water to rescue someone is crazy, that's because it is. Crazy dangerous.

Sandy Winnefeld: Even though they were introduced to the public in the 2006 motion picture The Guardian, Coast Guard rescue swimmers are, along with their sister service counterparts, some of the most elite yet unsung heroes in our military. Known as aviation survival technicians, or ASTs, they're much more than what the name implies.

Dr. Sandra Magnus: They respond to support downed aviators, hunt for survivors when ships and yachts sink, rescue victims of hurricanes, perform medical evacuations and of a host of other activities that save lives.

Sandy Winnefeld: It's said that more people wash out of the search and rescue swimmer training program than wash out of the elite seal training program.

Dr. Sandra Magnus: And our guest today, Mike Romano, happens to be one, a 20-year Coast Guard veteran.

Sandy Winnefeld: Speaking of water, many thanks to our sponsor for this season of The Adrenaline Zone, Culligan.

Dr. Sandra Magnus: With Culligan's drinking water systems, you can get the ultra filtered water you need to fuel your high performance lifestyle right on tap. Learn more at culligan.com.

Sandy Winnefeld: We caught up with Mike at work in San Francisco.

Dr. Sandra Magnus: Welcome to The Adrenaline Zone. You know, we've always wanted to have a search and rescue swimmer on the show, so thank you for being with us today.

Mike Romano: It's a pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Sandy Winnefeld: So, Mike, really glad to have you. You know, I've got some experience for the Coast Guard, and so it's really exciting for me to have a chance to talk to somebody who's actually out there on the front lines every day. You became a rescue swimmer. It's really an aviation survival technique. What came first? Your interest in swimming and water activities or your desire to be in the Coast Guard. How did you get into this job?

Mike Romano: My personal story is kind of long. So I was a very active child enough where my parents decided to call me two motors. It was just a name. They said every kid had one motor except I had two. So it kind of stuck with my family. They just called me two motors. So to combat me being very hyper, they put me in every sport possible. I did swim team up until I was about eight years old, and then I stopped. Football and soccer were my two sports. I grew up in Tucson, so at that time, I played soccer year round, and football was just very heavily in the family. My dad played college as well. So after high school, I had scholarships for both sports. I chose football over soccer, went to western New Mexico University. It's a division two school. Played there, started for four years as a running back, and then graduated. After that, I became a loan officer for Wells Fargo Financial. This was during the subprime mortgages and all that. So this was 2003, and I had moved back home with my best friend and my cousin, who's like, brother. We got a house together. They were on the five, six year plan, but my scholarship was only four years, so parents said I had to graduate in four years.

So I was working a real job. They were enjoying college, and I tried to do both. It didn't happen too well. So one night, after quite a few drinks, we were eating burritos, and we were watching storm stories on the Weather Channel for some random reason. And I saw somebody jump out of a helicopter, and I said, “Hey, that looks really cool.” My cousin said, “You've always been the best swimmer out of all of us,” which doesn't mean anything. I stopped when I was eight years old, so I kind of put in my two weeks, and six months later, I was in the Coast Guard.

Sandy Winnefeld: Wow, that's very cool.

Mike Romano: That is a roundabout way of saying how I knew nothing about the Coast Guard. Tucson is in the desert, obviously. I didn't even know what the Coast Guard was. I wanted to be a firefighter, but the wait at that time was about two and a half years. So I didn't want to wait to do anything. I just wanted to go do it. So I joined, talked to the recruiter and said, "This is what I want to do.” At that time, he told me that I probably wouldn't make it. And then I said, “Okay, but I would like to try.” And I got shipped off. There was no specialty stuff after boot camp, so I went to boot camp. I had high enough ASVAB scores and test scores, and I was able to put myself on the rescue swimmer list. So on the Coast Guard enlisted side, after you graduate from boot camp, you're not rated. So you normally go spend time at a unit, and then if you have the qualifying scores, to go aviation or to go, as I call it, into the book world, you just pick your path. So I qualified to become an AST. I was able to pass the initial physical, which was like. I don't remember the exact numbers, but it was push ups, pull ups, a run, and a 500-yard swim. And the times were not difficult at all.

And then after I got selected, I had to wait on the list for a few months. And so I was on that boat for about nine months. And then I was off to my airmen program, which my airmen program was four months long. So I went to an air station that had swimmers, and they train you to go to a school at that time. That's just how this whole process worked. And they trained me for about four months, and then I went off to ASTA school, which was about another, I think at that time, it was 18 weeks long. And so it's about an eight month process. And then I barely graduated. I barely graduated, but I did graduate. It was very challenging, some of the hardest stuff I've ever done.

Dr. Sandra Magnus: So I have to ask, since this is a show about risk, that was sort of a big step to just watch something on the tv that goes, “Oh, that looks cool.” Leave your day job and embark on this brand new adventure that you have no idea whether it was going to get you where you wanted to go. So did you think about it like that? I mean, that's the step a lot of people are afraid to take, right?

Mike Romano: I graduated college at 21, so I think I was 22 at that time. I didn't even think about it. There was no risk. It was kind of like, I'll go try this out, and if I don't like it, I can always get out after four to six years. I didn't really think too heavily into it at the time. I just wanted to go jump out of helicopters. I didn't really have a backup plan. The job market at that time was very difficult. There weren't a lot of job openings. It was right with the bailouts and all that stuff. So this was 2004. There just weren't a lot of jobs in the– And this was even having a bachelor's. So I had a bachelor's in management, and there just weren't a lot of jobs offered. And I hated sitting behind a desk. I knew that much about me was they took a collegiate athlete and then they stuck them behind a desk, and I couldn't do that. I mean, I was eating chicken wings and lifting weights, and that's all I was doing. And I was hating how I looked and hating everything about, just not enjoying what I was becoming because I wasn't as active.

Sandy Winnefeld: So the next thing you know, you find yourself in the middle of this rather difficult training program. Tell us about what kind of training does a rescue swimmer go through before being certified? And the Navy SEALs talk about a high attrition rate through their training, but this is a pretty tough program where a lot of people drop out.

Mike Romano: At the time that I was going through, I think the attrition rate was close to, like 60%, 70% and that's out of a class of 12. So when I went through, our class was 12. So we had a really strong class. We graduated seven, but the class right behind me only graduated two guys. So the training is extremely intense. It's a lot of physical, demanding training to make you as tired as possible, to basically put your brain in chaos so you can operate under stress. When we are down there on the SAR case or we are down there, we don't have a team to fall back on. It's just us. Our team is up in the air. But for the decisions being made on scene with the SAR case, actually what's happening, it's our decision. So that's what training does, is they physically drain you as much as possible to make you try to think and just have that mental toughness of, “I can make it. I can get myself out of here and I can get somebody else out of here.”

But the actual training itself, a lot of running, a lot of push ups, a lot of pull ups, a lot of swimming, just drain you and drain you and drain you. And then you would like a testing at the end of the week or something, and you'd be so physically exhausted that it was hard to wrap around doing the correct steps for all that stuff. And so again, it was 19,18 and a half, 19 years ago when I actually went through. But a lot of the stuff that you go through school still resonates today. Just knowing what you're physically capable of when that is demanded of you, and then knowing your capabilities, knowing how to think through a stressful situation.

Dr. Sandra Magnus: Talk a little bit about the team structure. You said you're part of a team. Maybe not while you're in the water, but there's a group in the helicopter supporting you.

Mike Romano: Yes.

Dr. Sandra Magnus: How does that work? And then what is that integrated training with the team? Can you talk a little bit about that?

Mike Romano: So as our team would be, we would have a pilot, a copilot, a flight mech. The flight mech is the other enlisted rates, excuse me, they are AMT or AET. They are the ones who control the hoist and then us. So when we go out on a SAR case, there's obviously a lot of decisions risk that we talk about prior to even leaving. And then while we're in the air, we're talking about everything as well. So with the teamwork aspect, it's just basically everybody getting on the same page with the plan of how we're going to pull somebody out of the water or off a boat or off a cliff or off of the rooftop. And it's just making sure everybody's on the same page. But there are quite a few times where I have gone down and what I'm experiencing will change the plan. So it's only a quick radio call back up or a hand signal just to let them know, like the plan is changing. And then we would just kind of mitigate it and then change the plan.

Dr. Sandra Magnus: Because you can't really know the conditions that you're going to meet until you get out there. So there's only so much planning you can do ahead of time, right?

Mike Romano: So how it works for us is we have what we call our sector, which kind of controls all SAR cases. They will call us to launch us. Within that, we do a risk management of whether scenario, what the actual call is, so we can pack up all the gear that we possibly need for that case and then we fly out after a good long talk. And then when we get on scene, though, sometimes the information that's being fed to our sectors is not exactly what's going on on scene. So you just kind of be very flexible and roll with all the punches. There was a time that I got called out for somebody had cut their arm open. But when I went down on scene, it was actually a mutiny and somebody had gotten stabbed and, and it was off of a fishing boat. The crew didn't like what the captain was doing. He ended up taking a stab wound to the shoulder. But when they called us out there just to get us out there, they said it was a really bad cut on the arm. But when I got down there–

Sandy Winnefeld: Which is true?

Mike Romano: Yeah, it is true. But he was all packed, he was bandaged up, he was ready to go. So it was just really quick and easy. But at the same time when I got on scene, it became kind of dangerous just because I didn't know what was actually happening. So that is something that as a swimmer with risk and dealing with all the stuff when we get lower down or we're jumping out, we kind of don't know exactly what's going on. We can only visually see what we have. But when we get on scene, a lot of times it's very different.

Dr. Sandra Magnus: I have to ask real quick. What did you do about the mutiny? Did they expect you to solve the problem or what?

Mike Romano: No, nothing. I just turned to them. They said, “Are you ready to go?” And I said, “We are ready to hoist him off.” And I checked his shoulder out real quick, and then we went and we hoisted them and it was done. So, yeah.

Sandy Winnefeld: Amazing. So a couple of sort of quick questions. You said you have a four person team in the helo, having flown in, the ones I flew in are not very big helicopters. So how much room do you have for rescuees in those birds?

Mike Romano: You'd be shocked how many people you can deal with and stuff in there. But sometimes we have two helos. We have a 60. We call it our Jayhawk, like a Blackhawk. So we have a 60, which I flew on those for about eight years. And then we also have our 65, which is much smaller. In a 60, I think they have, like a record they've hoisted like 26 people up on time. If anybody is listening to this, I apologize if I don't know the correct number.

Sandy Winnefeld: You'll hear about it on the Internet. I’m sure.

Mike Romano: I'm sure it was definitely over 20 people. I don't know how many the record is in the 65. You kind of got to bare bones it, and then because of the engines being very strong and the head not being super strong, there's that weight and balance. So we definitely have to constantly fuel plan, constantly power plan. So you constantly have to know how much weight you are with how much fuel to how much power that you're actually pulling. I don't know a thousand of those answers. I'm not a pilot, I apologize. But from 20 years of it, we constantly come into a weight power problem when we're bouncing. So I've been left on scene a few times just so they can go drop people off and then come back and grab you.

Dr. Sandra Magnus: So does that mean you're like, floating in the water waiting for a pickup or what?

Mike Romano: I have been left on scene on training flights before, so, yeah, I've been floating out in the middle of the Atlantic a few times, but for the cases that I have been left on scene, it has actually been like mountain hoist. So with the altitude and power and stuff, they had to go get a splash of fuel and then head on back. But luckily enough, in most of my water cases, I have not been left on stake. So thank you.

Dr. Sandra Magnus: Yeah, that's when you're really grateful. You have a good beacon.

Mike Romano: Yes, yes, exactly.

Dr. Sandra Magnus: So going back to the training a little bit and discussing how you prepare for a mission, do you guys train as a unit to evaluate the risk that you're undertaking, or did that come out of your individual training? And then if you train as a unit, do they exercise you with different scenarios as a unit?

Mike Romano: So while you're in rescue swimmer school, you go through what's called crew resource management training. You're like, initial course, we call it CRM. I'm pretty sure you as a crew–

Sandy Winnefeld: Crew Resource Management.

Dr. Sandra Magnus: Yeah, we did that, too.

Mike Romano: Yeah. So that's our main kind of risk of when to speak up if you're uncomfortable, if you want to change the plans or anything else. And then when you get into the fleet, actually, after you graduate school, we use what's called ORM, which is operational risk management. So we basically have these blocks and these scenarios, and you're either green, yellow, or red. We used to use a number system, but when the aviation number system was different from the boat's number systems. So,when we would talk to a sector, we would give them a number, and then they would say, why are you guys even flying? And we're like, “Well, because we're all comfortable flying, but our number was higher, and it should have been.” So we went to the color system, and it has worked out very well. But each block, there's a weather block, there is what type of case? What type of hoisting, possibly? So all of these blocks either fall into red; it's very risky. Yellow, it's medium risk, or green, we don't feel like there's any risk. And you kind of learn that when you get into the fleet. So when you become a swimmer and after you get qualified to actually stand duty, which is being qualified on that aircraft, then you get taught ORM and basically how to mitigate and how to manage risk.

Sandy Winnefeld: So, Mike, I'm sure that you have to go through a lot of medical training. I'm sure in your initial training and continuing training, what would you say is the equivalent level in the civilian world? Are you the same as an EMT or a paramedic? Where do you fall on that spectrum?

Mike Romano: We are nationally certified or nationally qualified EMTs, so we have to recertify on the national level every two years. There are some ASTs who've gone above and beyond and went to the actual paramedic school, either by using their own money or GI or that stuff. But there's one unit, I believe Sitka was required you to be advanced EMT up in Sitka, Alaska. But for the most part, we are just EMTs. I don't know.

Dr. Sandra Magnus: I don't know if you should say, just.

Mike Romano: Roundabout. Now they actually teach, you get qualified EMTs, so you'll go through the schooling, and now it's tacked on to the backside. So when I went through the schooling, I had to wait three or four months, and then I went to EMT school, and it was a super condensed school. I think we did it in three weeks.

Dr. Sandra Magnus: Wow.

Mike Romano: That time, three or four weeks, we became EMTs at that time.

Dr. Sandra Magnus: What about your law enforcement role? I mean, the Coast Guard does some of that for the coasts, but do you run into that in your role or not?

Mike Romano: So when I was at air station Clearwater, we were deployed down to the Bahamas to help do drug interdiction, but we were mostly just flying around DEA and DEU agents, which are the agents from the Bahamas. I was there in case it turned into a SAR case or unless we got called for a SAR case. But my actual role in the law enforcement is zero.

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Sandy Winnefeld: Okay, so let's talk about your equipment and technology. You're an AST. You're in the helo. You're probably wearing a wetsuit because it's chilly out there in the Pacific. You've got probably a harness and radio and those sorts of things. So tell us about the equipment that you're using. And also, you've been doing this for 20 years. Has that equipment changed over time and gotten better, or is it pretty much the same old stuff?

Mike Romano: I know some of the older guys when I was brand new, they were so happy with a lot of the changes because they used to just have like a lifting harness and an inflatable vest right here. So when I go out there, I'm either in a dry suit or a wetsuit. We used to have very strict rules about it, but now because of the technology of wetsuits, some of them are warmer than being in the actual dry suit now. So it's your choice. And I prefer the wetsuit because you're more mobile and you can swim. But I always view it as if you get left on scene. How do you want to be? So most of the time, I'm actually in a dry suit. But if there's a call out for somebody stuck in a cave out here, I would definitely be in a wetsuit just because of the dynamics and hydraulics in a cave. If you're in a dry suit, you might not get out. So you could end up actually drowning. But our harness, which has a built in vest in it that lays nice and flat and allows us to swim, I should have brought the vest, and I apologize about that. But in there, we have our switchblade knife, and we have chemlights, we have a mirror, we have a whistle, we have our personal EPIRB. As a swimmer you get EPIRB that is assigned to your vest.

Sandy Winnefeld: What's an EPIRB?

Mike Romano: Electronic Personal Beacon. So it's tracked by satellite. It’s like a 406. So, basically, if we are out there and they can't find us and everything's gone completely wrong, we'll turn on that, and we can be tracked by satellite within, I think, half a mile of where we are, so that is like our last resort tool. We have a radio where we're allowed to talk on marine frequencies on, and we have a few flares on us for emergencies. I'm probably forgetting some stuff in my vest just because I don't really use all the tools, but I know all the tools are there. Since I've been in, we have actually changed harnesses. We used to call it the TRI-SAR harness, now it's called the TRITON harness. And we used to have, all of our gear was in our pockets right here on the actual life vest, but now we changed it where it's just our life vest and we have a belt around the waist that has a bunch of pockets with all of our gear on there.

What was happening was when we were working on people, our vest would just fall in their face, and so we finally– But they are coming out with new technology all the time. I think it's in the works right now where we're actually changing up our helmet. So we have our flight helmet, but then we would have to change out to have our swimmer helmet out. So I think we are working on the integration of just one helmet for us that we don't ever change out of, which is great. And I think they're working on a bo mic earpiece for us, finally, instead of a waterproof radio, when you're calling the helo, you got to blow out all the water, and then you sound very garbled and garbled, and they can't really hear you.

Sandy Winnefeld: To say nothing of the noise of the helicopter.

Mike Romano: Yes. Or you'll tell them. They're like, back off. So you can actually talk to them. But there's been a lot of changes. I am a creature of habit with my stuff, so I kind of have mainly stuck with all of the old stuff that I know so well and where it is on me, so I don't really jump to the brand new stuff that comes out because we're so authorized to wear some of our older stuff.

Sandy Winnefeld: So let's really get into this. I was fortunate enough to see a SAR swimmer up close and personal when I had to jump out of an F14, 700 miles west of San Diego at night in really bad weather. So a Navy SAR swimmer, but I wasn't injured. But it sure was nice to see that swimmer coming down the wire. And he hooked me up, got me into the helicopter, deflated my raft, all that good stuff. So take us out on one of those dark, bad nights and tell us about a typical rescue you might have conducted. What does it feel like?

Mike Romano: Do you guys want a crazy story or do you guys just want typical–

Sandy Winnefeld: We'll take two crazy stories or more.

Mike Romano: So this was not a typical case. We had a lot of stuff go wrong. So this was out of Atlantic City, New Jersey. We got launched to a scallop boat that was about 50 miles offshore to somebody who had a compound fracture of their lower leg. I was very new at this time. I was about three years into being an actual swimmer. So with medevacs, we have to talk to a flight surgeon, which is a Coast Guard qualified medical doctor, to say, hoist or don't hoist them. Or you guys can fly out or don't fly out, or just basically, it's the warm and fuzzy to go get somebody. At this time, I didn't know that you could question them or even do any of that stuff. So they said, “Go hoist.” And I said, “Yes, let's go do that.” Also very new in my career, and I just wanted to do everything and go down and just try to be a hero as much as I possibly could.

So we get launched out there. I have done a few scallop boat cases, and I don't know if you've seen a scallop boat, but they've got outriggers and just a bunch of lines, and in the back there's a shucking shack. So when we go out and hoist, we try to hoist to the aft part of a boat so our helo can have– The pilot sits in the right seat, so they can have a view of how we actually fly. So they have reference to the boat to keep the helo in a good spot. Now, if there's no safe place to hoist in the front, in the aft part of the ship, you have to hoist from the bow. And it's very challenging because there's no aft. So it's very hard to maintain a nice, solid hover. Knowing that I had been out to a few scallop boat cases, nobody else in the crew had. So I was trying to explain to him, “Hey, I don't know if we'll have a good place to hoist.” They said, “We'll get on scene and we'll try it.” So they tried to lower me down to the boat about three different times, but there's too many lines and the possibility of me getting entangled was too high, so they ended up dropping me off in the water.

A few little stats here for you. It was like 30 knots of wind, 12 foot seas. The water temperature was about 36 degrees, and the air temp was about 34 degrees. So, yeah, it was just a cool night. So I ended up swimming to the boat. I had to time it because they dropped a rope down for me to try to climb up, but I had to time a wave to hit the rope because the rope wasn't long enough, obviously. So. So end up trying to do this weird climb up on the boat, get on scene, and the guy definitely has a broken leg. Again, in my brain, being very new, I was like, “We have to hoist him.” That's what they said. So we have two devices, we have more than two, but two big ones. We have our normal basket, and then we have a litter. So this guy couldn't walk. So I was going to put him in a litter, which is like a hoistable stretcher. So there was no really safe place to do it. So we decided to hoist him from the bow of the ship. So I packaged him up and I remember talking to them and to the helo and I was like, “Hey, guys. It's really bad down here. These are pretty big, so let's try to do this as quickly as possible.” They get the cable to me. Nice hoisting area at the bottom of the ship. Not a big area. It was just smooth, like straight up. There were no wires out and everything started going smooth. We start hoisting them up. The boat rolls down on a nice 12 foot wave. Like, just boom. Like this. The helo kind of shoots over. The guy gets wrapped around something and the cable parts and the guy goes overboard into the water.

So while this is happening while he's going up, the swing of him cracks me in the head. This was before it was required we were to wear helmets. This case might have changed some of that. So I get cracked in the head laying down on the deck and I don't see him anymore. What I think happens is when we have an entangled cable, we have a squib at the cable so they can shear it off right there. So I thought that's what happened. I thought our crew sheared it. So I run to the back of the boat, throw on my fins and my mask, and I just dive in thinking that they had sheared and I have to go grab this guy immediately. When the boat was steaming– So when you're hoist in big seas, you have to have the boat going like, almost full throttle. So we had a sizeful gap between where he was and where I was. It was pretty strong current that night as well. So I ended up, I don't remember swimming it at all. It was about 250, 300 yards. Was swimming just in a direction. The helicopter had came around and just shined their spotlight straight down. So I knew where to actually swim to. When I get there, we have floats on a litter. So if this ever happens or if we have to use a litter in the water, it floats. There was so much cable that it was dragging him down. So when I got to him, he was like, right here in the water and he's completely strapped down like this. So he can't move at all. So he was just like, completely strapped in. So I end up kind of swimming on top of him. Swimming into the waves. They weren't breaking. It was just like, nice, big rollers.

Sandy Winnefeld: Swells.

Mike Romano: So, yeah, swells. So just like all EMT training out the window, I slap him in the face as hard as I can about two times. His eyes shoot open. He throws up water right in my face. I'm like, yes, he's breathing. Like, that's all I can think about. He's not dead. He's breathing. So I try to level him out. His eyes are this big. Of course there is a language issue. He didn't speak English, and I didn't speak Mandarin. So I'm just kind of trying to say, “Are you okay?” And I kind of like, just to see if the litter was actually floating, he kept being dragged under. So it dawned on me as I'm getting hit in the leg with the cable, my brain automatically goes, “Oh, no, we're surrounded by sharks as well. This is awful.” So that didn't happen. It was actually the cable. So I had to swim under him, kind of like get him up out of the water while untangling the cable. And then I dropped that down, and then he was floating really good.

So again, thinking that we had no usable cable or hoist left, I thought it was a good idea to try to swim him and the litter in the seas back to the boat. So I started making zero progress because of the seas. And there's somebody in the litter, and it's very hard to tow them with that current. And then I looked up and the boats were gone. I was like, okay. So I get out the radio, and I start talking to the helicopter, and nobody’s answering me. They're dealing with everything that has just happened to them as well, right? So nobody's talking to me. And then I think we're in the water for 13 minutes or something like that. And then the cable comes down with what we call a quick slice. So it's basically like a backup hook that we can wrap the cable around, interlocks on itself. You just have to make sure it's routed correctly or else it'll slip through. So they send that down to me, and I put all my weight that I can on it and just do this. It doesn't budge. I was like, awesome. So I get him hooked up, send him up. I go up.

And at the time, I didn't know this, but the cable had came up and hit the blades. And this is a few months after we had an awful crash in Hawaii where the cable parted, went up in the blades, and we lost four rivers, and Hawaii was the 6505. This was a really big deal that it had hit. So we are flying back. No weird vibes, no weird anything. And I'm just working my tail off, trying to warm up this guy, keep him conscious and breathing. So we land on top of the Atlantic City hospital, and we land there, we dropped him off. Everybody's adrenaline is kind of through right now. This was supposed to be a routine case that just went absolutely chaotic just because we can't control Mother Nature. So everybody's kind of in shock right now. I dropped them off to the actual doctors. I'm just like, “All right, cool. They're fine. Hopefully he lives. He was alive when we dropped him off. Good.” So myself and the flight neck are looking at the blades, we kind of see some damage, but we don't really know because it's like 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning, it's. It's black. So in that situation, because the cable hit the blades, we're supposed to shut down and wait for an actual maintenance team to come inspect it all and say, “We need to change out the blades or whatever.” So at this time, a light flight tries to land on top of us. There's a team of doctors and people like, “This guy's got to go to Philly. He's going to die.” So we make the choice as a crew to fly the 10 miles back, to get back in the helo, fly back, and land back at home plate with everything said and done. Obviously, it ended up being a pretty big mishap. We were greeted by our CEO at the time. He was not very happy with us with the last decision that we just made, but we thought that we had possibly saved another life by leaving the helo pad. It was a lot of paperwork after that. I was putting it that way. So, yeah.

Dr. Sandra Magnus: Oh, my gosh. This is like a movie. This is a movie.

Sandy Winnefeld: But it also points out what you referred to earlier on your training. I mean, I can't believe the sort of determination, endurance, and improvisation that you had to do in order to not only keep this guy alive, but to keep yourself alive. That's pretty impressive.

Dr. Sandra Magnus: No kidding.

Mike Romano: Thank you. It wasn't a thinking portion of it. So as rescue swimmers, we have a motto., “So others may live,.” And so hell or high water, I was going to get to that guy, and I was going to make sure he was okay. I didn't know that we still had usable cable. I thought that I was just going to be in the water with him until they sent out another helo to come grab it.

Dr. Sandra Magnus: Oh, wow.

Mike Romano: In my mind, there was not a lot of thought process other than, I've got to go get him. I've got to go save his life right now. I don't wish it upon anybody. It was supposed to be a nice routine. Not a lot of thinking case. You just go down, hoist me down, we hoist him up. I come up, we drop him off at the hospital, everything's okay. But it just shows you how the weather can just change everything like that. Not having a good hoisting platform, not having a safe area to hoist from, it can just create a lot of chaos at the moment. I'm just glad we trained the way we train. I'm glad I went through all the training that I did because I was awkwardly calm the entire time. Just kind of made my peace with the whole situation. Just step by step. Like, I've got to go get him now. I have to go do all these steps just to make sure he's up there.

Sandy Winnefeld: It's kind of like having an aircraft emergency. Got a few things I got to do right now. I don't have time to get stressed out.

Mike Romano: Yeah. I just attribute that to the eight months of rigorous training that I went through. I don't want to say the situation was not easy by any means, but it's just my brain just went into this place of just how to handle that stress. It just went real, real quick into it, and it was just like, “Okay, let's go to work now.” That was my really crazy case.

Dr. Sandra Magnus: Oh, my gosh. But how does it feel, though, when you actually successfully pluck someone out of a situation like that where you've got icy water under horrible conditions and you end up getting them to a safe place. How does that feel?

Mike Romano: The pride of it, “Hey, I did a great thing.” Like, it's an incredible feeling just to pull somebody out of their most difficult situation. It's extremely gratifying to know that you can help somebody at the same time, and you just kind of view it as this is what you train for. This is your job. So normally, as swimmers, we have our little community because there's not too many of us. I think there's a little over 300 of us. So we kind of all know each other and you kind of like, debrief your case within your crew. You do your crew one, and then you go back to the swimmer shop and then you have your actual buddies being like, “Hey, why don't you do this?” Or, “You should have found this.” Not like armchair quarterbacking you, but like, “Hey, I had a similar case, I did this>” And you're like, “Oh, wow, that's a really awesome idea. Maybe I will try that in the future.” But no SAR case is the exact same. There is no exact same SAR case. I'll just put it that way. Everything is a little different every single time.

But I will tell you, with my risk management, it completely changed after that case. Completely, completely changed my thought process. Me constantly wanting to go down and be hoisted on every single SAR case. I definitely put a lot more thought process into it and definitely weighed risk first, gained a lot, and became, I don't want to say risk averse, but risk intelligent after that about whether or not I need to go down. Or I can stay up in the helo and they can just send down a basket and person can get in the basket and then they canhoist them up and then we can work on them from there.

Dr. Sandra Magnus: Do you follow up or keep in touch with any of the people that you've rescued? Is that a thing or not so much?

Mike Romano: Some people do. I do not. I view it as I did my job and I go into the hospital alive. That doesn't happen every single time. But when you drop them off at the hospital, you kind of did your job. There are times that people don't make it after they get dropped off at the hospital. There are legal ramifications. Sometimes people try to send us gifts and so forth. I have gotten some nice Christmas cards, but I do not like to follow up. I kind of view it as just doing my job and I, hopefully their day or hopefully their family is happy and they can live to see their kids. So I don't want to know. I'll just put it that way. I know some people are a lot different minded. I just don't want to know.

Sandy Winnefeld: So, yeah, it's a bit of an entanglement. So, Mike, you live in one of those professions where on any given day you have no idea whether it's going to be a slow day or a day like you just described. Can you tell us a little bit about how you handle that? You show up for work and, hey, this could be the day.

Mike Romano: I try not to think about it. I have had some insane things happen to me on SAR cases like almost being impaled and cable rubbing on cliff faces and just stuff that you don't really want to think about after the fact. So you just kind of put yourself in the mindset of so others may live and you just kind of stick with that motto and hopefully everybody's doing their job that day and how it should be done. Try to keep yourself in the best shape that you can possibly be in and try to have the best support group around you. I know my wife is fantastic with hearing my stories, even though she might not fully understand everything that's actually happening. But those like stressful bad days or if you lose somebody on a SAR case or there's times that we get launched out for like a child and a mom gets swept out from like a big wave and you're just searching. So you kind of compartmentalize certain things and just helps to have nice support.

Dr. Sandra Magnus: No, that's got to be hard. How many rescues have you made over your 20 years career? Those are the successes.

Mike Romano: Well, I just had to do all my final stats. So because I am retiring here soon, I have about 2800 flight hours under me. I think I have saved and assisted close to about 80 people, seven dogs in there.

Dr. Sandra Magnus: Oh, wow. There you go. Dog lovers out there, cheer.

Sandy Winnefeld: Puppies grip for any story, even a podcast.

Mike Romano: So it's not every time, but when you do get a pull. So I was also not a part of Hurricane Katrina and not a part of Hurricane Harvey. We were flying out to Hurricane Harvey and our helicopter broke and so we were stuck in New Orleans watching everybody do everything while we were eating really good food.

Dr. Sandra Magnus: Well, okay. Consolation prize.

Mike Romano: Wasn't the worst thing ever. So, yeah.

Sandy Winnefeld: So we're getting close to being out of time. I got one last question for you. What advice would you give to a young person who might aspire to have a career in the Coast Guard as an aviation survival technician?

Mike Romano: My advice for them would be to have no backup plan. So, you join to be a swimmer and that's why you join. That's the only reason why you join. I know it sounds kind of crazy, but when you have backup plans, especially for doing something as challenging as being a swimmer with the physical and mental side of the job, it's very easy to quit. So don't have a backup plan. Have this be your one and only goal. Work hard and just know as physically exhausted as you think you are, you can do more. And as physically exhausted as you are, you have to keep that mental side tough. So it's just like willing yourself to get to that next step, to never give up, to be out there to help people out in their worst day ever.

Dr. Sandra Magnus: That's good advice.

Sandy Winnefeld: Fantastic discussion.

Dr. Sandra Magnus: Amazing.

Sandy Winnefeld: This is what we were looking for Mike. I really appreciate it. You're not only an amazing person to talk to, you're an inspiration, I think, in terms of–

Mike Romano: Thank you.

Sandy Winnefeld: Somebody who found something that he loves doing and tough training. And you've made a big difference over the course of your 20-year career. So I’m going to send you with a colloquialism that we hear all too often, but thank you for your service.

Dr. Sandra Magnus: Absolutely.

Mike Romano: Thank you guys for having me. It's been wonderful to talk to you guys, and, yeah, this is great.

Sandy Winnefeld: Best wishes to you in retirement. We call it rewirement, not retirement, because you're going to go off and do something else. But we wish you the best.

Mike Romano: My body's very beat up, so I think it's time to change over. But, yes, thank you very much.

Dr. Sandra Magnus: All right, thanks.

Sandy Winnefeld: All right, thank you.

Mike Romano: See ya.

Dr. Sandra Magnus: That was US Coast Guard Rescue Swimmer Mike Romano. I'm Sandra Magnus.

Sandy Winnefeld: And I'm Sandy Winnefeld. Thanks again to Culligan for sponsoring this episode. Get exceptional water for exceptional performance. Learn more at culligan.com.

Dr. Sandra Magnus: Please pass our podcast around to your friends, and we'll see you next week with another fun episode of The Adrenaline Zone.