‘He slipped from the harness into the sea’
Greenberg recounts the life-ordeath drama when things started to go wrong on a 1997 mission to save the crew of a stricken yacht.
I was next to John lying on my stomach with my head out the door watching the rescue while the video camera on my helmet recorded the events unfolding.
When the two crewmen were only a metre below the skid, the unthinkable happened. Chris Webb suddenly went limp, his hands dropped from the hook, his arms came over his head and he slipped out of the rescue harness plunging about 10 metres back into the turbulent sea.
Despite the momentary feeling of horror, my overriding concern was to keep him in sight, but he immediately disappeared below the surface among the churning waves.
John stayed calm and told Steve what had happened. Our priority was to get the other sailor on board. While Steve turned the helicopter to try and keep track of where Chris had fallen into the sea, John continued to winch him in. He came on board looking shocked and lethargic. We got him into the cabin and instructed the two sailors already aboard to care for him so we could focus on finding Chris.
Although we didn’t show it to the rescued sailors, John, Steve and I were deeply upset at what had happened. This had never occurred before, and clearly it wasn’t supposed to happen now — we were there to save people, not make things worse!
I didn’t want to say it aloud, but it had been difficult enough spotting a 40-foot yacht in these seas, so how were we going to find a single person? To make matters worse, we had not seen him resurface after he hit the water. This was going to be harder than searching for a needle in a haystack because, unlike the needle, there was no guarantee Chris would be on the surface and even able to be found!
We had moved several hundred metres away from the yacht while bringing the third man on board, so we worked our way back and tried to figure out where we had been in relation to it when Chris fell into the sea. John searched from the left of the helicopter while I searched from the right, directly behind Steve.
While we continued searching, I radioed the yacht. The conversation was brief – could they see the crewman who fell from the harness into the sea? ‘‘No’’. And could they estimate where we were in relation to them when he fell? ‘‘Around where you are now.’’ The Maritime Operations Centre (MOC) in Wellington heard our end of the radio conversation, and as this was the first they knew we were having a problem, a few seconds after I finished talking with the yacht they called asking for an update.
There was nothing anyone else could do to help us; either we were going to find Chris or not. The seas were too rough to send rescue boats, and by the time another helicopter reached us, it would be too late.