‘It’s not as Hollywood as you might imagine’

Published 5:00 pm Thursday, September 28, 2006

U.S. Coast Guard rescue swimmer Ron Tremain remembers loading the 11-year-old Surf Pines girl into a helicopter to fly to a Portland hospital after she tumbled 40 feet down a cliff.

She had knocked out all of her teeth and suffered multiple broken bones.

“She probably only had a half-hour left at the bottom of that cliff,” he recalled this week, sitting in the wardroom at Air Station Astoria. Tremain is trained to swim dangerous waters, but the crew was able to land on a strip of beach late that night in August.

The rescue may seem less harrowing than those depicted in the new blockbuster “The Guardian,” which hits theaters today, but local members of the country’s smallest armed service said Wednesday the film tells a mostly true story.

“It’s not as Hollywood as you might imagine,” said Lt. Cmdr. Kevin Lyons, who attended a sneak preview.

Directed by Andrew Davis, whose previous work includes “The Fugitive” “The Guardian” focuses on the Coast Guard’s elite rescue swimmers, or aviation survival technicians, who jump from hovering helicopters into treacherous seas to rescue struggling civilians.

After a mission goes tragically wrong, legendary rescue swimmer Ben Randall, played by Kevin Costner, heads to Elizabeth City, N.C., to train recruits at the Coast Guard’s “A” School while he recuperates. There he meets Jake Fischer, played by Ashton Kutcher, a young, cocky swimming star he takes under his wing. The two end up working together in Alaska.

Production company Touchstone Pictures calls it “a riveting, white-knuckle story of hardcore courage and selfless sacrifice set inside the never-before-seen world of Coast Guard Rescue Swimmers.”

Action scenesWhile members of the Coast Guard have been instructed to avoid voicing their opinions of the film, several recently weighed in on its accuracy and their roles at Air Station Astoria.

The movie was partially filmed off the Oregon and Washington coasts, using personnel and HH-60 Jayhawk helicopters from U.S. Coast Guard Group Astoria. Other locations included Elizabeth City, Kodiak, Alaska, and Shreveport, La.

Local pilots, flight mechanics and rescue swimmers assisted film crews for about one week in January, primarily to shoot a cave rescue. In the scene, two kayakers are sucked into a cave, where they remain trapped. The stars’ stunt-doubles plunged into the waves off Washington’s Waikiki Beach at Cape Disappointment and swam in to “rescue” them, while a real rescue swimmer, a flight mechanic, pilots and numerous search and rescue teams stood by.

The cave’s interior was actually a set in a massive water tank constructed for special effects. But the sequence was developed through research, said Petty Officer 1st Class Tremain, describing it as “loosely based” on a 1990s rescue at Cape Lookout, near Tillamook, involving two stranded boaters.

While he hasn’t seen the film yet, he has spoken with instructors at the Elizabeth City training school that have. Some of them have speaking roles in the picture.

“Some parts are dramatized, but to a degree it will reflect our jobs,” said Tremain. “It should be a pretty good overall representation of the Coast Guard.”

Movie crews worked closely with the Coast Guard, said Lt. j.g . Amy Sandbothe, who piloted helicopters for several scenes, and producers hired a retired commander to help with the details.

“They were basically in these guys’ back pockets,” said Sandbothe. The Coast Guard gave its full support, she added, and was not supplemented for its work on the production, estimated to cost at least $50 million, according to some news reports.

“We’re paid for already,” she said, stressing that search and rescue missions were given priority. The Coast Guard diverted its helicopters twice during the filming.

Some differencesDespite the research, and despite using the agency’s “standard communications,” said Lt. Cmdr. Lyons, he noted a few key differences between the movie and reality.

“We don’t do freefall swimmers at night,” he said. Pilots also don’t turn their heads to speak to rescue swimmers, and they don’t usually bring two swimmers to work a single mission.

And would swim instructors really lock recruits in a tank with hypothermia-inducing conditions? Probably not, said Tremain. He said the film may also neglect some essential duties of rescue swimmers.

“It’s not all physical,” he said, noting that swimmers must pack and stitch parachutes, and they sew all of the survival gear they carry. “They probably don’t put a lot of that in the movie.”

“But from what I understand, it’s very, very close,” he said. “It’s reality.”

The rescue swimmer school has one of the highest attrition rates of any special academy in the armed forces, according to the Coast Guard. Fewer than half of its hopefuls make it through the four months of physically and mentally taxing training. If they stick it out, they spend six months to a year with their units before progressing to the Advanced Rescue Swimmer School on the North Coast.

Perhaps the location is why Astoria’s swimmers have historically done well in their basic courses – the local group boasts a 100-percent pass rate with its eight swimmers, Sandbothe said. There are only about 245 of them in the entire Coast Guard.

Teamwork and prideThe release of “The Guardian” may signal a new level of appreciation for the Coast Guard, local officials said.

“From what I understand, this is the first movie based on the Coast Guard,” said Lyons.

While the agency is visible to residents of the North Coast, the location of an air station and multiple boat stations, it has been largely absent from the lives of many Americans, said Sandbothe, although there was a boost in attention following Hurricane Katrina, which brought many workers into the spotlight.

And the agency is also small relative to other U.S. armed forces, Tremain added.

It’s been largely absent from major motion pictures, except for a few appearances in “Bad Boys 2,” and a cutter shown rescuing an Air Force crew in “The Perfect Storm.”

Local Coast Guard members hope the film will put all of the agency’s jobs in the limelight.

Sandbothe highlighted flight mechanics, calling them “the unsung heroes of the Coast Guard.” Flight mechs help swimmers out of the helicopters, and they operate the hoist baskets that bring swimmers and survivors back up to safety. They also run test flights, which may contribute to the agency having one of the “safest aviation records in the world,” according to the Coast Guard.

“I think part of that is that we work on helicopters then go fly them,” said Petty Officer 2nd Class Joe Villa, who helped with the hoists for “The Guardian.” “It’s good to get recognition.”

Chief Petty Officer John Harter said there are many people at the local station filling difficult roles to help the public.

“We’re all part of a team here on the helicopters,” Harter said. “We’re proud to help showcase that to the public. As a whole, we’re honored.”

On showRated PG-13, “The Guardian” hits theaters today, with shows at 3 p.m., 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. at Astoria Gateway Cinemas and at 3 p.m., 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. at Seaside Cinema. Both theaters offer screenings at about noon Saturdays and Sundays.

U.S. Coast Guard Group Astoria plans to set up an opening-night information table and search-and-rescue display in the Astoria cinema lobby.

The Columbia River Maritime Museum hosts a special showing of “The Guardian” at the Astoria theater Saturday morning, featuring a question-and-answer session with a group of pilots, flight mechanics and rescue swimmers from Coast Guard Group Astoria. Call 325-2323 for more information.