Kingsborough’s Future Lords Of New York Harbor Team Up With Coast Guard For Rescue Training
Many graduates of Kingsborough Community College‘s Maritime Technology Program have saved lives while working at sea. They’ve battled raging car fires near the East River and hauled drowning swimmers out of Jamaica Bay. The first police rescue swimmer to dive into the Hudson and reach the passengers on US Airways Flight 1549 started training here.
On Wednesday morning, a group of seven Kingsborough students motored out into New York Harbor for their first at-sea emergency training: A mock rescue operation with the U.S. Coast Guard. The students lit emergency flares to call the Coast Guard’s chopper, which swung overhead and lowered a trail line to guide the rescue basket down to the boat. Students worked in teams of two catching the line and securing the basket on deck before sending it back up.
“It was good fun. I had a little difficulty, and wish I would have done some things faster, but that’s the point of the training. In a real life situation, we will be prepared when something actually happens,” said 19-year-old student Christian Baptiste.
Kingsborough has one of the largest two year maritime programs in the nation — educating between 80 and 100 students at a time. With an emphasis on hands-on learning, students spend at least two days a week on the water and learn about critical safety skills, navigation techniques, lessons in seamanship, engine maintenance, and hull repair. The program’s alumni can be found on most vessels working in and around New York Harbor.
“If it floats in the harbor, one of our graduates is probably operating it,” said the program’s director, Captain Anthony DiLernia, who was recently reappointed to his sixth term as a member of the NOAA’s Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council.
To prepare for Wednesday’s exercise, the students were taken to the Coast Guard’s Air Station in Atlantic City, where they received lessons on how to handle emergency equipment. The exercise also benefited the Coast Guard, said DiLernia, because helicopter crews must train with a civilian vessel every month.
“I’m lucky to get an $8 million helicopter for an hour,” he said. “So we have to combine our training to meet their needs.”
Although Wednesday’s excursion was only a training exercise, students still had to be cautious. They risked an uncomfortable or even dangerous electric shock if they touched the cable wire or basket before it landed on deck. The furiously rotating blades keeping the helicopter in the air can generate thousands of volts of static electricity, so the wire needs to be safely grounded before it can be touched.
Lukasz Klepacki, a graduate of the program who now teaches as an adjunct professor, said the hands-on learning experiences are crucial for preparing students to respond to real life emergencies. Klepacki captains several ferries in New York Harbor and piloted the water taxi that hosed down the burning car on the FDR two years ago.
“The program teaches students to think on their feet,” said Klepacki. “They spend a lot of time on the water and learn to deal with the elements and develop situational awareness.”
Many of the students said that it was the hands-on learning and the opportunity to work outdoors that drew them to the program.
“What you learn in class becomes easier when you do it on the boat,” said 20-year-old Paige Wharton, the only woman who participated in Wednesday’s exercise. “But mostly, I just love the ocean, and I’ll do anything to be on the water.”
