"(CHOPPER BLADES WHIRRING)" "MAN: (OVER RADIO) Bucket submerging down." "Two, one, almost done." "Doors are closed." "Okay, I'm good." "It's clear to come up." "Should be coming out now, you're off." "JONKEY:" "Although I always wanted to fly helicopters," "I wasn't exactly excited about joining the military." "I always wanted to be an astronaut." "Those guys were my inspiration." "But now, 20 years later," "I wouldn't give up this job if they gave me my own space shuttle." "MAN:" "Empty, clear fire." "Bucket's three-quarters." "HEICKLEN:" "I'm a contractorin my dayjob, been doing it for 18 years." "I learned a lot of skills that were to come in handy later on." "Making good concrete is a real art, and it's fun, too." "But there's a big difference between a building that will last a lifetime and one that collapses and buries people alive." "I've seen that." "Let's get that concrete moved out." "MAN:" "Gotcha." "Hey, Mike, let's get a better slump on that." "Let's strengthen it up a little bit." "CRAlN:" "I grew up on the ocean, played around in boats all my Iife." "I Iove the ocean, but the water here is very cold, way too cold to swim." "Bottom line is, I actually never learned how to swim." "Considering what I do for a living, people find that amusing." "ROSS:" "My grandfather was my inspiration." "He flew humanitarian missions in world War II, across the Himalayas into China." "He crashed and was lost for 15 days in the mountains," "hiked out on foot." "To a grandkid, you couldn't ask for a bigger hero." "MAN: (OVER SPEAKERS) I'd Iike to personally thank everyone..." "JONKEY:" "It was amazing to see how many people donated their time and money to help build this memorial." "MAN:" "My special thanks goes to the command..." "JONKEY:" "We lost some good friends in Afghanistan." "They all left young families behind." "It's tough." "(speaking lNDlSTlNCTLY)" "MAN:" "Something that happened..." "My name is Major Matt Jonkey." "I do a Iot of training now with young pilots graduating from flight school." "It takes a huge amount of work to be a good pilot, and you need to be a Iot better than good, considering the missions we undertake." "(speaking lNDlSTlNCTLY)" "(siren wailing)" "MAN:" "All right, guys, let's go. I need..." "Make it to the top." "What do we got?" "A family..." "My name's Steven Heicklen." "I volunteered to become a fireman because I thought it wouId be exciting, more exciting than watching concrete dry." "But when you arrive at your first fire, it's a defining moment." "Get that hose team up to the second floor." "MAN:" "Get down here." "(speaking lNDlSTlNCTLY)" "I'm not afraid to tell you, I was scared." "MAN:" "Go to the right, Bobby." "Very good." "(ship HORN honking)" "Yes, please." "Let go, forward!" "MAN:" "Let go, forward." "Slow ahead, starboard." "MAN:" "Slow ahead, starboard." "Slow astern, port." "Slow astern, port." "Port 30." "Commander Peter Crain, Canadian Navy." "I'm the captain of the destroyer Athabaskan." "MAN: (OVER SPEAKERS) Header..." "CRAlN:" "My first voyage as captain was just an overnighter, a short run out to sea." "I took the ship for a spin to see if I couId actually command a warship." "The Navy let me do it, (CHUCKLES) 'cause I suppose they wanted to know, too." "Coast Guard vessel leaving the narrows right now, sir." "ls that the one, right there?" "Yes, sir." "(MAN speaking lNDlSTlNCTLY ON radio)" "...Member two-one-nine, B-Iiner zero-four." "B-Iiner zero-four, have your transport." "ROSS:" "Okay, B-liner zero-four, Captain's out." "I'm Captain Lauren Ross." "My grandfather was in the Army Air Corps." "My father was a fighter pilot." "My brother and my husband are both C-17 pilots." "Before my first flight, I got a Iot of advice." "AII right, crew, going around." "flaps on half." "MAN: (OVER radio) ... 70 degrees left turn to the bypass..." "Gear up." "JONKEY:" "Today we are looking for an injured hiker, somewhere in the mountains above Lake Tahoe." "Why don't you guys check about a mile to the west?" "We have very few clues as to his whereabouts." "We're supposed to rescue him, but, of course, we have to find him first." "(OVER radio) Come around to oursix." "AII right, keep looking." "There's another set of rocks right out there in front of you." "Why don't you go look at that?" "MAN:" "will do." "I'm gonna bring the tail around to the right, bring it out the Ieft-hand door." "He's in the rocks right below us." "He's coming down." "Good position." "Going out." "Okay, he's five feet." "Ten..." "halfway." "Watch out for those rocks, okay?" "MAN:" "Copy that." "JONKEY:" "He's on 15." "Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one." "Okay, give him some slack." "MAN:" "Need some slack." "Need some slack..." "Hold for slack." "Slack's coming out." "Looking good, guys." "Looking good." "Good position." "Okay, bringing him in." "Bring him up now." "Coming in." "All the way." "Coming in from the back." "Strap's halfway." "Five, four, three, two, one." "Coming in." "Hold." "Coming up." "(MAN speaking lNDlSTlNCTLY)" "Does anyone have the target visual?" "Officer of the watch, I have a target." "Green two-zero, range 1 0,000 yards." "MAN:" "Roger." "Excellent eyes, Mr..." "Forward." "Confirm he's outside of territorial waters." "Aye, sir." "He's not responding to Surf Warning Delta, sir." "Midships." "Port 1 5." "We got him?" "MAN:" "Aye, sir, visually also." "Excellent, good shooting, team." "CRAIN:" "At one point, they were going to take the guns off these ships and just go with missiles." "But nowadays, we chase pirates around quite a bit." "Off Somalia, for example." "There's nothing as effective as a big, loud smoking gun to make your point, and a splash that lands nearby in the water." "MAN:" "Cease fire." "CRAlN:" "It leaves the bad guy with the right impression." "The firstAthabaskan fought in the Battle of the North Atlantic during the Second World War." "She exchanged fire with a German ship and was sunk." "128 men died, including her captain, John Stubbs, who went down with his ship." "If you command a warship in the North atlantic, there are ghosts down below." "The U-boats, battleships, dreadnoughts," "lay right there beneath your feet by the hundreds." "We have a tradition in the Navy that the spirits of sailors who've died in battle are with us still." "MAN:" "flight check, five-seven..." "AII right.." "...Travis approach, use Travis altimeter two-niner.." "Engage VProf, MCT." "Niner-three." "Left haIf-turn at 2,100 feet." "The flares protect us from heat-seeking missiles, always a possibility on combat missions." "It's all about accuracy." "You miscaIcuIate by a few seconds and your people can land miles off target." "The rescuers will now have to be rescued." "Yeah, the pressure's good!" "HElCKLEN:" "Training is all about learning technique." "Let's get it over to the left." "But more important is you learn to trust someone else with your life." "MAN:" "Somebody free it up." "Move to the left, advance left, advance left." "Fighting fire creates a bond." "It's a fraternity you simply don't leave." "When you hear that next siren, it's your buddies calling and somebody needs help." "Okay, let's hold that spot right there." "JONKEY:" "Landing on water is essential to some of our operations." "We can even load or unload small boats." "MAN:" "We're floating here." "Back down." "ROSS:" "A 100,000-pound road grader flying out the back door completely changes the balance of an aircraft." "especially if it gets stuck on the way out." "That could be catastrophic." "Yeah, pull that up." "MAN:" "All right, TCAS is up." "AII right, thanks." "ROSS:" "We use road graders to build runways to land on, so we can land almost anywhere we're needed." "And they do expect us to land almost anywhere." "JONKEY: (OVER radio) Swimmer's out of the water." "MAN:" "Okay, swimmer's five feet above the water." "And coming in." "JONKEY:" "Looking good." "He's halfway up." "With real people involved, even a training rescue can be as lethal as the real thing." "Okay, swimmer's coming back up." "Okay, he's in the helicopter." "The most dangerous maneuver we do is the dust landing." "We often have to land in fine sand when deployed to the desert." "It's basically a controlled crash." "From about 10 feet to the ground, you can't see a thing." "I always tell people, every dust landing takes about three months off my Iife." "AII right, crew going around, flaps on half." "MAN:" "Positive rate." "Gear up." "MAN:" "Gears up." "AII right, Iet's try this again." "MAN:" "AII right, Iet's nail it this time." "Third time's the charm." "AII right, coming around." "MAN:" "Crosswinds." "I'm gonna power a couple of clicks of trim." "Gear flaps, spoilers." "We're clear to land." "We're trained to land on very short runways, a third the length of what airliners need." "There is one cardinal rule, never land where there is no room to take off." "Crew going around, flaps on half." "MAN:" "Positive rate." "Gear up." "As you get more experience, you learn to land on shorter runways." "And it definitely gets more challenging." "I'm just..." "The power control?" "I'm..." "I'm too long." "MAN:" "Yeah." "I need to pull back my power, but then I'm sinking, so..." "MAN:" "Lots of spool time on the engine." "AII right." "MAN:" "You got to anticipate that." "AII right." "It's a short runway, you gotta be on speed." "Your speed's better this time." "Good job." "MAN 1 :" "So Jimmy made out." "MAN 2:" "That's right." "MAN 1 :" "Watch out there." "MAN 3:" "All right, boys, let's roll it up." "HElCKLEN:" "It's one thing to train on a fire, but I would say that nothing prepares you like the real situation" "(speaking lNDlSTlNCTLY) -for people in serious distress." "Nothing." "MAN: (OVER radio) Copy that." "(CHATTERlNG OVER radio)" "We're good." "CRAlN:" "We can be at sea formonths at a time." "The crew gets restless, bored and homesick, because it's all practice and training." "You can only pretend for so long." "But all that can change in a heartbeat." "JONKEY:" "We train hard, so we're prepared for anything." "AII of our crews want to help, but it's a dilemma." "If you've been in the middle of a disaster with real suffering, you're not looking forward to the next one." "Good morning, B-liner zero-four." "ROSS:" "Some people hate the uncertainty of this kind of work." "You don't have a clue where you're going next." "But I Iove not knowing where l'll be needed tomorrow." "ANDERSON COOPER:" "We're following the breaking news out of Haiti." "The largest, most powerful earthquake in the region's history" "has crippled the country, measuring 7.0." "(PEOPLE screaming)" "Its epicenter was just a few miles outside the capital, Port-au-Prince." "There are reports of toppled buildings there, we've seen pictures of some dead bodies in the streets, there are reports of trapped victims screaming for help." "One aid worker told the AP he fears there may be thousands of people dead." "Clearly, this is an unfolding tragedy." "It seems to be a massive scale at this point..." "Wherever you are watching this broadcast throughout the world," "I hope you can hug a loved one close and thank God that you are not in Port-au-Prince tonight." "But the Haitian people who are here want you to hear their stories." "They want you to know what is happening here and what will be continuing to happen here through the days and the weeks ahead." "(SlRENS wailing)" "CRAlN:" "We hadjust returned from a Iong, tough, North atlantic deployment." "Athabaskan and the frigate Halifax were now tasked to go to Haiti." "Léogâne, which is just to the west of the Port-au-Prince inside the claw of Haiti." "CRAlN:" "Time was ofthe essence, and whenever you're in a hurry, you can almost always count on bad weather." "I guess going around is not really..." "is really a non-starter." "This'll take a couple more days." "Speed required right now still at 25 knots." "To go through it?" "Yes, sir." "Well, assume power to both mains, full speed." "Roger that." "Resume power to both main engines, full speed ahead." "We don't know much at the time, but what we do know..." "JONKEY:" "One moment, you're planning a weekend off with the family, and the next, you're going to be gone for weeks or even months." "It's tough on everyone, especially our families." "ROSS:" "The landing..." "MAN:" "It's doing real good, ma'am." "Okay." "lt's ready to fly. lt's FMC." "Sounds great." "All right, I'll see you upstairs." "You bet." "WOMAN:" "Five, six, and seven are prepped." "MAN:" "Do you like it?" "Yeah." "ROSS:" "Our planes can handle about 50 seriously injured patients." "We airlift the worst cases that can't be treated in the midst of a disaster." "170,000 pounds of cargo, food, water, medicine, trucks, helicopters." "Missions were rerouted from the four corners of the world." "planes came from the middle East, Europe, Asia, and all over the US, and my own unit from California." "...form F, you uploaded." "I saw it." "The fuel cart is downstairs and the ER, is it signed..." "MAN:" "Yeah." "Okay." "ROSS:" "There was hardly a single person in the Air Force who wasn't affected by the Haiti operation." "(MAN speaking lNDlSTlNCTLY ON radio)" "B-Iiner zero-four, have you in position and holding." "Do you think we have enough iv kits?" "Yeah, plenty of iv kits." "JONKEY:" "I trained foryears with my local search/rescue team." "They never called us up and I was getting frustrated." "So, I joined with Team Angel and we flew down on our own." "We were going to help, no matter what." "CRAIN:" "Now that we had a real mission, the difference in the crew was extraordinary." "Storm or not, seasick or not, every single person on those ships wanted to do whatever they could." "JONKEY:" "It's a long way to Haiti for a helicopter, 3,000 miles." "But it was a desperate situation." "MAN:" "Okay, we would like an altitude of about 16,000, and we expect communication at 1509 ZuIu." "MAN:" "Here now, the President." "BARACK OBAMA:" "I wanted tojust make a brief statement on the latest situation in Haiti." "At the airport, the help continues to flow not just from the United States, but from brazil, Mexico, Canada, France, among others." "The entire world stands with the government and the people of Haiti, for in Haiti's devastation, we all see the common humanity that we share." "MAN:" "We have negative cargo upload, but we don't know how bad till we actually get on the ground." "Okay." "JONKEY:" "After an earthquake, commercial air traffic shuts down, and typically, the non-government paramedics, doctors and so on, have to figure out their own transportation." "I got a friend to fly myself and some doctors to Miami, and then we hitched a ride from there." "MALE NEWS READER:" "As international aid agencies mobilize, the rescue effort is continuing." "Much of the city's been reduced to rubble, but the airport is still operational." "That's opened the way for international aid to be brought in by air." "Ten miles to the north..." "AII right, keep your eyes peeled on the right side." "MAN:" "Roger." "Winds, three-six-zero and five, clear to land." "MAN:" "AII right, for this next one, Iet's try to find something a Iot closer." "(speaking FRENCH)" "ROSS:" "The first C-17 to land at Port-au-Prince transported an elite unit of search and rescue specialists, including dogs that found nine people alive in the rubble." "HElCKLEN:" "There were civilian volunteers from all around the world, flying into Haiti in anything they could find." "(GRUNTS)" "Obviously, the first thing you work on is trying to find those who are buried but still alive." "Sometimes, it's a voice or noise under the rubble, or a family member that heard something." "MAN 1 :" "Get a hand in here." "MAN 2:" "It's this way." "HElCKLEN:" "The real tragedy ofHaiti is compounded tenfold by one thing, the concrete." "It's terrible stuff, full of sand, but none of the usual steel reinforcement." "buildings in Haiti can barely stand up under their own weight," "let alone throwing in an earthquake." "(speaking foreign LANGUAGE)" "HElCKLEN:" "The critically injured need immediate help." "When you can save a life, that's a fantastic high." "Well, XO..." "CRAIN:" "The harbor at Port-au-Prince was in ruins, as expected." "I'm just curious as to when..." "We sent our helicopter out to survey the damage and start delivering water." "And what I want you to do..." "And straighten out a bit." "JONKEY:" "clean water was the first consideration for those who survived the quake." "We flew in fresh water in 1 ,000-Iiter barrels." "Without clean water, these kids would get dysentery, cholera, and potentially die by the thousands." "(children yelling)" "We delivered millions of liters of water with the helicopter alone." "And tons of food and medicine with our ships." "Perhaps most important of all, we gave people a sense of hope." "MALE NEWSREADER:" "Ifone building should have survived this brutal quake, most would have put their money on the presidential palace, a tragic symbol of the political history of this country." "There's been no news yet from the president." "His status is unknown." "Wow." "From the sky, it's just utter devastation." "The palace." "See the palace down there?" "ANDERSON COOPER:" "We have had several aftershocks, some of them quite strong." "Because they can't go back into their homes, because with these aftershocks they're afraid that their already weakened homes are going to collapse upon them." "FEMALE NEWS READER:" "Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas, lies in the west half of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola." "It straddles the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault, which triggered the devastating 7.0 earthquake." "Locked by friction, the fault stayed put, until intense pressure by the moving plates caused the fault to slip." "The aftershocks were strong and frequent." "Scientists measured the movement of the North American plate westward, and the Caribbean plate eastward on average at two centimeters per year." "The plate movement for this deadly quake measured an astounding two meters in a single minute." "The epicenter of this earthquake was nine miles southwest of the capital city, Port-au-Prince, and at only 10 kilometers deep, mustered a seismic strength not seen in Haiti in over 200 years." "JONKEY:" "Makeshift camps went up all over the place." "And there was a concerted effort to try to feed everyone." "The dilemma was how to get food to people without causing riots." "Our mission was to fly prefab hospitals and medical teams into remote areas." "people think it all happened in Port-au-Prince, but the earthquake affected almost all of Haiti." "(speaking lNDlSTlNCTLY)" "JONKEY:" "In some villages we flew into, nobody had ever even seen a doctor..." "MAN:" "And for you." "...let alone a hospital." "Over here, buddy." "Just spread that stuff out. i appreciate that." "Grab that." "Good." "Where's the rest of your stuff at?" "He had just come back from work, and he got home about 4:30." "And the earthquake took place about 4:42." "He was on the second floor of his house" "and the entire house just collapsed with him." "Oh." "HElCKLEN:" "The toughest thing is when you have little kids with crush injuries." "We could try..." "An arm or a leg might have to come off." "There are no facilities for fancy surgery and infection sets in really fast in the tropics." "So the doctors are mainly focused on saving lives." "Let's check the popliteal pulse and the dorsalis pedis." "Tourniquet is on." "Weak and thready." "Got a popliteal?" "No." "What about the wound itself?" "Let's take a look at it." "What do you think?" "Can you ask Mom how long she was injured for?" "JONKEY:" "It's extraordinary to watch these volunteers at work." "And the courage of the Haitians." "Even little kids who are orphaned and might lose an arm or leg." "As a parent, it's pretty overwhelming." "DOCTOR 1 :" "We gotta try and save it." "DOCTOR 2:" "Yeah." "HElCKLEN:" "There is only so much you can do in a makeshift hospital." "Some people need serious follow-up care." "They need to be evacuated for surgery, rehabilitation and so on." "This plane was provided by a friend of mine." "He is flying out four people to the States." "Two would otherwise die here, and the two girls with missing legs need surgery and artificial limbs." "I'm so happy for you guys." "Mommy's going to get the seat with the baby here." "Okay." "Where is Mommy?" "Okay, good." "Perfect." "Mama." "MAN:" "AP and external equipment." "AP is on and in use." "external equipment, can you confirm it's off and removed?" "MAN:" "Card's clear." "Parking brakes." "On." "Pressure checks." "Remove checks, please." "(speaking FRENCH)" "ROSS:" "As part of the worldwide relief effort, the US Air force delivered 19 million pounds of cargo and evacuated over 15,000 refugees." "FEMALE NEWS READER:" "Aid is certainly coming from all over the globe." "Countries and organizations are donating enormous amounts of money." "(PEOPLE speaking foreign LANGUAGES)" "MALE NEWS READER:" "The USS Carl Vinson is on its way to Haiti, stopping... (NEWS READERS speaking lNDlSTlNCTLY)" "CRAlN:" "The scale ofthe rescue effort was extraordinary." "Ships from around the world arriving by the hundreds." "It's kind of the opposite of war." "A humanitarian mobilization on a scale quite unbelievable." "MALE NEWS READER:" "Over a half dozen US ships are on the way, including the Navy hospital ship, the USNS Comfort." "meanwhile, makeshift hospitals have been set up in the streets, an urgent call for medical supplies remains." "FEMALE NEWS READER: ...organizations also sending aid for Haiti through Santo Domingo in the Dominican republic." "A spokesman for the UN's World Food Programme saying that getting supplies across the border from the Dominican republic into Port-au-Prince by ground transportation is about a 12 to 18-hour prospect." "The airport, of course, was itself damaged in the earthquake." "It only has one runway, it only has about a dozen parking spaces for planes." "Today, an FAA alert warned that planes trying to get into Port-au-Prince could expect to wait to land for more than an hour." "And that there would be no fuel on the ground..." "HElCKLEN:" "The most amazing thing is how resilient and tough the Haitian people are in the face of this terrible tragedy." "They picked up the pieces and got back to work, rebuilding as best they could." "It could take generations to overcome the effects of this quake." "Can you hold it?" "He's bringing out a piece of wood, 2x4, 1 6 inches." "CRAIN:" "These young sailors, it's amazing how quick they took to carpentry." "We would build a bunk in the afternoon and the little kids would have a place to sleep that night." "(singing in foreign LANGUAGE)" "actually, the biggest hit were the swings." "(children laughing)" "(singing in foreign LANGUAGE)" "JONKEY:" "You spend all your life training for war, and then a mission like Haiti comes along." "It changes your perspective." "But helping out in places like Haiti, delivering food and water, and giving orphan children hope for the future, that's not a bad legacy." "Not bad at all." "HElCKLEN:" "This plane was bringing in medicine." "luckily, no one was hurt." "We managed to salvage about 900 pounds of badly needed antibiotics." "The owner went back to the States, bought another plane." "Now, he's back flying medicine." "And maybe he's not a great pilot, but to me, he's one of the real heroes." "So we're going..." "We're not going to that main area..." "HElCKLEN:" "When you make a contribution, you might not think it does anything." "But to the individuals you helped, it was huge." "It's totally worth anything you can do." "FeIIas, I just want to say how much I appreciate all the work you guys have put in the Iast four months of this trip." "There's always the feeling you could have done more." "But moving much-needed supplies and hospitals has a Iot of merit." "And in the end, it probably helped the most people in the Iong run." "Some people think that if you can't make everything perfect, it's not worth doing." "For me, the smiles of those we helped are etched into my mind." "We've made a connection there, and it's permanent." "B-liner one-six descend and maintain flight level three-two-zero." "Evening, Control, B-liner one-six, flight level three-two-zero." "I'd Iike to think that if I was in a disaster, hurt and all alone," "that someone would come to my rescue." "brian williams:" "On our broadcast tonight, the big one hits Japan." "A massive history-making earthquake, one of the largest ever measured, and it triggered a massive tsunami all the way..." "MALE NEWSREADER:" "In the city ofSendai, the devastation is astonishing." "brian williams:" "...nuclear plant in trouble." "The aftershocks continue." "ROSS:" "Control, B-liner one-six, switching 126.7."