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, pulls a pregnant woman from her flooded New Orleans home.]] Though the term rescue swimmer may be applied to any number of water rescue professionals, the term is most often applied to personnel in the Coast Guard s, fire and rescue services and military branches.. Many Coast Guards train Helicopter rescue swimmers and boat based rescue swimmers to enter the water to assist survivors in distress, whereas military rescue swimmers, sometimes referred to as " SAR Wet Crewman" (or CSAR Wet Crewmen), do most of their work from Aircraft Carriers . The United States Air Force rescue swimmers are called PJs, or Pararescue Jumpers, and perform not only sea based but also land based rescues as well. U.S. Coast Guard Rescue Swimmers attracted international attention most recently during the rescue operations following Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA and the surrounding areas. It was reported that in the first five days following Katrina, Coast Guard crews performed more than 36,000 rescue and hoist operations of Katrina victims stranded on rooftops and in flood water. This was reportedly more than the Coast Guard had rescued worldwide in over 50 years. President George W. Bush awarded participating members of the Coast Guard a Presidential Unit Citation and ribbon for their response to Hurricane Katrina . RESCUE SWIMMERS IN THE MEDIA The release of the 2006 motion picture, '' The Guardian '', starring Kevin Costner and Ashton Kutcher , introduced still more people to this small group of elite rescue workers. While Katrina brought domestic and international news coverage to Coast Guard rescue swimmers and their crews, their story was first shown on television in a series of specials produced by Tam Communications , working in association with the Discovery Channel . Along with covering the history and the demanding training rescue swimmers must complete, the specials also feature dramatic on-scene footage of several heroic rescues. TRAINING United States of America United States Navy and Marine Corps rescue swimmer candidates attend the five week long Aviation Rescue Swimmer School in Pensacola, Florida . The United States Coast Guard Aviation Survival Technician (AST) / Rescue Swimmer School in Elizabeth City, North Carolina is 18 weeks long, along with 3 required weeks at the Coast Guard's Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) in Petaluma, California where ASTs learn to be qualified EMT s. Rescue Swimmers at Coast Guard Air Station Sitka, Alaska must maintain EMT II level of proficiency, due to the remoteness of their operational area, and the number of medivacs performed by that unit each year. The Coast Guard rescue swimmer training program is among the most rigorous in the military. It is often cited as being one of the most challenging of all special operations schools in the entire United States military. Reportedly only 75 Coast Guardsmen attend the school each year, with fewer than half graduating, making an attrition rate quite high, though somewhat lower than Army Ranger and Navy SEAL training programs. Unique among all the other military services, the Coast Guard allows women to serve as rescue swimmers. However, only three are presently qualified, and women must meet the same physical, endurance and performance standards as men in order to earn a qualification. The United States Air Force also has a notoriously rigorous rescue swimmer program called Parajumpers (Nine out of every ten candidates fail the course, giving PJs the highest attrition rate of any non- JSOC special forces or conventional unit. PJs are an elite special forces component, engaging in combat search and rescue. They are trained as combatants and paramedics, operating on air, sea, and land and are considered, along with Air Force Combat Controllers, to be the Air Force equivalent to Navy SEALs. During war they rescue downed pilots, special operations troops left behind, and other stranded military men and women. Pararescuemen are also active in peactime, retrieving NASA space equipment, but also performing rescues in all types of natural disasters, though they get much less recognition for this role. The PJs are often sought out for use by other branches of the military, because of their high-quality training and versatility. For example, Air Force Pararescuemen can be attached to elite units to provide medical support, as they were with Task Force Ranger in Mogadishu, while other PJ units actually rescued the stranded Rangers. They are also commonly wanted by the Coast Guard, whose own rescue swimmers are only trained for 18 weeks, with a three-week-long of EMT course (to the PJs' two years' worth of training and 22 week EMT-Paramedic course). PJs can also be used in longer range rescues than USCG rescue swimmers, because of their parachute and HALO/HAHO capabilities Denmark The main part of rescue swimmers in Denmark are Danish Airforce men, from the danish transport and rescue squadron (''Squadron 722'' or in danish ''Eskadrille 722''), which operates from Sikorsky S-61A and AgustaWestland EH101 helicopters. The rescue swimmers has to be fully quallyfied helicopter technicians, before they start a 4 week course at the Danish Frogman Corps , followed by a 2 week First Aid / PHTLS course. Other rescue swimmers are from the Danish Navy and operates from Westland Lynx Mk. 90B helicopters based on a Inspection Vessel in the waters around Greenland , Faroe Islands and sometimes also Iceland . These people are recruted from the ships Divers (which has a 6-10 weeks diving course from the danish navy diving school) and gets basic helicopter crash survival training. Finally some coast based rescueswimmers with high-speed boats are stationed around the coasts of Denmark. These are trained by either the danish national guard or ''The Royal Danish Administration of Navigation and Hydrography'' (danish: ''Farvandsvæsnet''). EXTERNAL LINKS
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