PORTSMOUTH, Va. – The Coast Guard conducted hoist training with cadets from the Coast Guard Academy in the Pasquotank River, Wednesday.
Cadets were given the opportunity to get in the water and have Petty Officer 3rd Class Steve Scheren, a rescue swimmer from Coast Guard Air Station Elizabeth City, N.C., simulate pulling them to safety and where they were hoisted up to a MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter by Chief Petty Officer Robert Cain, an a flight mechanic from Air Station Elizabeth City.
Cadets from the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Conn., are at the air station for their weeklong cadet aviation training program, where cadets get to experience working at an air station.
The cadets went through training to learn how to be safely hoisted into a helicopter from the water and understand how to communicate to the rescue swimmer during the training. Once the cadets completed their training, they became qualified to be a duck, a simulated person in distress in the water.
Pictures from the training may be viewed at the Coast Guard News Flickr page.

Petty Officer 3rd Class Steve Scheren, a rescue swimmer from Coast Guard Air Station Elizabeth City, N.C., is lowered from an MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter during hoist training in the Pasquotank River near Elizabeth City, Wednesday, May 29, 2013. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 1st Class Brandyn Hill