MARINE CORPS AIR STATION IWAKUNI, Japan -- For Friendship Day 2010, there will be approximately 3,000 Japanese visitors coming through the MCAS Iwakuni harbor by way of 17 ferry boats.
In preparation for any future ferry arrivals, harbor operations conducted a man overboard drill along with the station fire department, medical personnel and safety personnel at the harbor here April 15.
The purpose of the drill was to better coordinate actions with other elements aboard the station and to provide proficiency in the areas of responsibility prior to Friendship Day.
“When the time comes, if anyone falls overboard from any one of those ferry boats, harbor operations division, along with the fire department rescue swimmers are ready to respond,” said Senior Chief Petty Officer Lemuel Oconer, the harbor operations division officer.
The exercise consisted of a simulated boat collision, which resulted in two people, represented by water dummies, falling into the water.
At that point, harbor operations notified the emergency control center of the mishap and minutes later both the station fire department search and rescue swimmers-and-medical personnel reached the scene.
Six SAR swimmers piled into a small utility boat and made their way toward the dummies and prepared to jump into the 58-degree water.
To get as much training out of the exercise as possible, the search and rescue swimmers were dropped off approximately 50 feet from the floating dummies.
After retrieving the simulated victims from the water, rescue personnel immediately took the victims to the pier where a corpsman waited to provide medical attention.
“We do these kind of drills all the time to keep us on our toes,” said Seaman Jayson Goodwin, a boatswain’s mate for the harbor operations division. “After it’s all said and done, we can look back and see how we did and what we can do to improve.”
Overall, the whole training evolution only took 23 minutes.
“Speed and time is of the essence in this case because the victims can only be in the water for several minutes before hypothermia can set in,” said Oconer. “Anytime you have a victim in the water, you have to be able to get to them as quickly as possible.”
Both harbor operations and the fire department agreed the operation ran smoothly and successfully.
“I think overall the harbor operations personnel performed well,” said Oconer. “They performed in accordance to what we briefed previously and performed exceptionally well when it came to cooperating with the rescue swimmers and standard operating procedures.”