Northern Michigan Voices is a series by 9&10 News reporter Olivia Fellows in which she interviews a person in the community about a story from their life. Everyone has an interesting story to tell, and we want to give you a voice, Northern Michigan! To submit your own story pitch, see the bottom of this article for more details.
In this edition, Olivia talks to veteran and former U.S. Coast Guard rescue swimmer Donald “Mac” MacIntyre on his military service and how his training and work with the military impacted his life.
Today, the Coast Guard currently has approximately 1,105 rescue swimmers on-roster across the country, who are also known as Aviation Survival Technicians.
Hear from MacIntyre on what it was like regularly braving flights and jumping into chaotic, freezing waters to save souls in peril:
Q: Tell me about yourself and how you initially became interested in joining the military and pursuing a career in aviation and rescue operations.
MACINTYRE: When I was around 10 years old, our next-door neighbor where we lived downstate was an avid fisherman. One winter, he got caught in an ice flow in Saginaw Bay and the Coast Guard rescued him, his wife and about 30 other people from the flow. It was in the papers and he made a big deal of it and said that those guys went out of their way and they were perfect. From then on, that sounded like something I wanted to do as I got older, which was to be in the Coast Guard and help people out.
At 17, I joined the Coast Guard and right after I graduated high school. I had to take my parents to the recruiter because I was 17 and I joined the delayed enlistment program, which extended out a lot further than I thought it would. In January 1977 I went to basic training in Cape May, New Jersey and came out and went on a ship that did International ice patrols in the North Atlantic. From there, I went to an aviation school in Lakehurst, New Jersey. Upon graduation from there, I came to Traverse City.
I’ve served in Traverse City, Port Angeles, Washington, Mobile, Alabama, Detroit and Kodiak, Alaska where I did Aleutian patrols, and then I went back to Chicago, and then back to Traverse City, and then retired.
A side note, when I joined the Coast Guard I served at Air Station Detroit and I did rescue people from ice flows in Saginaw Bay, so I went and did a full big circle there.
Q: What was it like doing US Navy helicopter rescue swimmer training and being assigned to the International Ice Patrol in the North Atlantic? Can you share any memorable experiences from those days and how training prepared you for your future roles?
The Coast Guard had no way to get people from the water into the helicopters unless they were cognizant enough or not hypothermic. If they couldn’t get into the basket themselves, there was no way to help them, and the Coast Guard went on to kind of piggyback with the Navy helicopter rescue swimmer program. In the Navy, there was more emphasis on rescuing pilots who were ejected from their aircraft. In the Coast Guard, it was modified a little bit, because most of the time we rescue civilians.
In 1986, the rescue swimmer program became mandatory for all aviation survivalmen, of which I was one, and we didn’t have a choice. I decided that I might as well be a rescue swimmer so I trained at it for over a year, and in between times, still had to do my job and get done with training.
I graduated from that went to the Coast Guard Emergency Medical Technician School and became a Coast Guard helicopter rescue swimmer. The thing that really drives home what I got to do in the Coast Guard was, while I was a rescue swimmer, participated in rescues but I wasn’t a swimmer. I was just the flight mechanic and hoist operator on a helicopter. We were in the ocean patrol, which meant we basically made sure that everybody was in proper procedures for the patrol.
Q: What were some of the most intense or memorable search and rescue missions you participated in during your career?
MACINTYRE: In September 1992, I was on patrol on a Coast Guard Cutter and at about six o’clock in the morning, they received an Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon and a mayday signal from a fishing vessel and there were five people onboard. The boat was going in the water and they needed help, and we were in the midst of a very heavy storm in the Bering Sea. There were about 40-foot tall seas, I know the winds were really high and we launched from the ship and we went to St. Paul Island in the Bering to refuel. There’s a small Coast Guard base there and a small airfield, we refueled and then flew out to where the last emergency locator beacon was pinging.
While we were doing that, a Coast Guard C-130 (aircraft) from Kodiak came over and found two people. They conned us in, and we picked them up during the rescue. For the pilot and myself as co-pilot, it’s ingrained in our heads to do a hoist from 25 feet. The first thing I did was look out and see waves higher than we were, and I said, “We’re too low. We’re too low.” Our pilot, I will never forget this— you never forget when this happens— he looks over at the co-pilot and says, “Yeah, seas are running kind of high. We should probably be higher than 25 feet.” He did it so matter of fact that we’re “like, oh, yeah, that makes sense.” So, we did all the hoists from 50 feet. I picked up two people in the first load in the basket, which you’re not supposed to do, but I couldn’t get them to pay enough attention to separate. When I got them in the cabin of the helicopter, I found out why they had tied themselves together— because they thought they were going to die.
I cut them loose, and they were yelling at me that there were three more people in the water so we searched more. The fixed-wing airplane, the C-130, found a life raft but there was no one in it. But, maybe a couple hundred yards away from the raft, we found two more people. We hoisted those up separately, and they were telling us that there was one more person in the water that we had to get. By then the helicopter was extremely crowded with people, we still had a ways to go, and we only had so much fuel left.
Just when the co-pilot announced that we had five minutes left, I spotted the guy in the water thrashing around. We picked him up, got him in the helicopter, and just as I got the door closed to the helicopter, the co-pilot said, “Bingo, we have to go now,” and we turned and had it back to St. Paul Island. We had all five in. The adrenaline rush and the crash after it was something I won’t ever forget.
There was also one in Chicago that stands out. We had the trifecta of air search and rescue cases, I did three in one day where we lost one, saved one and found one.
We got a call early for two fishermen whose boat had flipped over in Lake Michigan. One gentleman made it ashore, one gentleman didn’t. We had no sooner finished that when we got a call of a man knocked off a sailboat, and his wife was on the sailboat still. She didn’t have as much knowledge and sailing, so the small boat went out to help her. We went out looking for him and learned the boom came across and hit him in the shoulder. He broke his clavicle, so he had a life jacket on and he was floating around. They put me in the water, I swam to him and talked to him.
I found out that he couldn’t really get on the Coast Guard boat, so we had to take him in the helicopter. He told me later that he usually never wears a flotation device because he’s he knows how to swim. He didn’t think he needed it, but for some reason, his wife told him he had to put it on, and he did and it kept him afloat after he lost the use of pretty much half of his upper body.
The next case we had was a little boy. It was a reported drowning in Lake Michigan so we went out searching. Then the worst thing about heading out from these is you sometimes only get half a story over comms. The story we got initially was he was an eight-year-old boy who was swimming and never came back. When we were searching we later got the whole story which was that he was with his older cousin, and they were swimming and neither one of them was around. We started looking on the shore, and sure enough, two little boys were walking along the shore and they sent me down on the helicopter, and they were the two boys we were looking for. They decided they were hungry and went looking for a concession stand and never told anybody. That was a very happy ending for us, we found them and there was no problem.
Q: As you’ve described, you’ve been in incredibly high-intensity situations, dealing with people who are panicked and flying over freezing waters. During those patrols, how are you able to focus on maintaining calm, both for yourself and helping the individuals that you’re saving so that you can get out of there safely?
MACINTYRE: It’s just something that the Coast Guard trains at every single day. It’s so ingrained in you in training that that’s what you’re going to do which is take everything step by step, row by row, even if an emergency pops up because you are trained in emergencies all the time. When it comes up, you just exactly what to do, and you do it.
Q: From the Pacific Northwest to Alaska (Kodiak) and Chicago, you’ve worked in diverse environments. How did each location and job present unique challenges, both operationally and personally?
MACINTYRE: A lot of the guys in the Coast Guard tease me and guys like me because I served in what we call the Great Lakes triangle, which is Detroit, Traverse City and Chicago, and it’s all fresh water. When you say Great Lakes to 90% of the people, they think of a small lake. You look across, you paddle across, and you have a good time. They don’t realize how vast and dangerous the Great Lakes can be.
When I was assigned to Kodiak, Alaska I wasn’t an active rescue swimmer, but I did train with the guys. There we go in the water, and it’s just salt water is just a little bit different than fresh water. It’s kind of a different environment, but you train for it. The thing about going to Alaska that really amazed me was all the fishermen there prepared for the worst. They all have survival suits, and they all know how to get into them fast. They don’t know how to swim around with them, and they know that they’re supposed to wear their gloves at all times and keep their hoods on because they lose heat too fast.
When I left Detroit to go to Kodiak, that was one thing I looked forward to because in fresh water most of the fishermen have the attitude that they know the lake they lived on. It was there all their lives, they’re not afraid. With the lack of fear comes a lack of respect. Within seconds, you can be in the water without stuff to keep you warm and you’re not going to make it.
Q: In such an intense work environment when you’re dealing with these situations involving potential death, in terms of that specifically, how did it impact you when you ran across situations and rescues in which you did lose people or couldn’t locate them for rescue?
MACINTYRE: It affects you to a certain extent, but then you get the mentality doctors, nurses, firefighters and policemen have— you separate yourself from it. You definitely can’t dwell on it, because we dwell on it, it really, really starts to affect you after a while. One of the ways that the Coast Guard does it is with humor. I know it doesn’t seem a nice way to deal with it with humor, but we laughed. We made sure we had each other’s backs. We joked, not about the actual death, but just how badly we did the job or what went wrong. That was funny. For example, you come back and during the hoist you might have damaged a piece of equipment. It’s like, “Geez, if you were a better hoist operator, you wouldn’t have damaged it.” We tried not to really dwell on the bad aspects of it.
Q: What advice would you give to someone aspiring for a career in aviation survival or rescue operations today?
MACINTYRE: It is probably one of the most rewarding jobs you’ll ever have. It’s the camaraderie, the competition, the sense of brotherhood, sisterhood that you have with the other people. You know what they’re going through, They know what you’re going through. The support system in the military back then, it was different than it is now, where they want to make sure that you’re okay. When I was in, we had each other, and that’s what we did. We talk through it, you figure it out and you make light of it. Everybody has their own way of coping with it. The thing I would tell the younger people is to look at it as a game. It’s a game you have to win, but it’s just a game. Do your best and follow your training, and above all have fun, because it is probably the most rewarding job you’ll ever have.
Q: After such a long and diverse career, what made Traverse City the place where you decided to retire?
MACINTYRE: I’m originally from downstate, but I was familiar with the Traverse City area. I was one of the lucky people that got stationed at Traverse City right out of my school and I just fell in love with the area. I met my wife here, and after we got married, we knew no matter what this was where we were going to retire and raise our family. Everywhere we went, it was beautiful, had wonderful places and wonderful people. Michigan was always home, so we always knew we were coming back to Michigan.
Q: What do you miss most about active duty, and what are you most enjoying about retirement?
MACINTYRE: The thing I miss the most, and I’m sure the people I’ve talked to all say the same thing— I miss the flying. When I became a rescue swimmer, there were four of us in the airplane, but just the banter, the talking. We knew each other’s families, the older guys would talk about their kids in sports and you knew everybody. You got to see things other people didn’t have a chance to see, and I miss the flying and the camaraderie.
Q: If you could go back and relive one part of your career, which assignment or experience would you choose, and why?
MACINTYRE: I would choose Kodiak Alaska Patrol because it was a unit within a unit and in the Coast Guard more than any other service, it’s the smallest. You know a lot of people and if you don’t know someone, they usually know someone you know. You always had a sense of being there and you’re with people you know. We knew we didn’t have the big concerns about officers enlisted like a lot of the bigger units or shipboard life. Being in Alaska, if all our work was done for the day we’d go fishing as a group. We were more of a club than we were an actual military unit, but we all had a great time and we all respected each other. We all did a job, and well.
Q: Can you speak to your thoughts on what people should know about the importance of the military and those who serve in it?
MACINTYRE: The military is all-volunteer, for one thing, and I’ve heard anywhere between one and 2% of the entire population of the U.S. decide to volunteer to serve in the military. It’s a very small group of the population that are willing to serve not just the country, but the people that actually live here. The best answer I’ve ever heard for someone saying thank you for your service was “You were worth it.” Some of us really do believe that. I was lucky enough to serve just over 20 years, and I loved every minute of it.
I was one of the rare ones who wrote down almost everything that I did. My wife jokes that I’m kind of the Forrest Gump of the U.S. Coast Guard. If it was an important event, I was usually part of the crew that was there. From escorting the U.S.S. Ohio, the first Trident submarine, into Bangor Base in Washington state, being around for the arrest of Christopher Boyce who was a spy in Washington state, being assigned to the President’s rescue swimmers when he was visiting both Traverse City and Detroit, to the first Arctic deployment of the helicopter. I always happened to just fall into it, and it made an interesting life even more interesting.
Have an interesting story of your own? Email Olivia and provide a brief summary of your story, and we will contact you if we’d like to tell your tale. We’re interested in all sorts of stories, too! Sad, happy, exhilarating, inspiring or educational— we’d like to know about your story and share it with the community!
Note: We will ask for photos as well (or take one if possible), it helps immensely if you have pictures ready.