Coast Guard rescue swimmers from Coast Guard Air Station Atlantic City train off the coast of Atlantic City, New Jersey, September 18, 2006.

The United States Coast Guard's airborne "rescue swimmers" are trained at its enlisted Aviation Survival Technician/Rescue Swimmer school in Elizabeth City, North Carolina. Though the term rescue swimmer may be applied to any number of water rescue professionals the term is most often applied to personnel in the Coast Guards fire and rescue Elizabeth City is a City in Pasquotank and Camden counties in the U The course is 18 weeks long; more than three times the length of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps schools. The course includes instruction on rescue techniques, helicopter deployment techniques, and a myriad of technical skills from small engine repair to parachute packing and maintenance. Successful completion of this course results in being awarded the Aviation Survival Technician rating, the technical rating for a variety of aircraft and survival equipment maintenance.

After completion of A-School, all AST's are sent to Petaluma, California to attend the U. Petaluma is a city in Sonoma County, California, in the United States. S. Coast Guard's Emergency Medical Technician school. The Emergency Medical Technician ( EMT) exists in many countries and is a health care provider trained to provide prehospital emergency medical care After three weeks of EMT training, they must take and pass the National Registry of EMTs EMT-Basic test as part of their qualification as a helicopter rescue swimmer.

Full qualification as a rescue swimmer can take up to a year from the first day of A-School, as graduates must learn the aircraft systems and emergency procedures of their assigned aircraft.

Coast Guard Petty Officer 2nd Class Charles Mitchell, a rescue swimmer from Coast Guard Air Station Cape Cod, Massachusetts, is hoisted back into a Jayhawk helicopter after retrieving Oscar, a rescue training dummy, 50 miles east of Boston, March 25, 2008.

This extremely challenging job is featured prominently in the 2006 film The Guardian, starring Kevin Costner and Ashton Kutcher, and also in the book and movie version of The Perfect Storm. The Guardian is a 2006 Film starring Kevin Costner, Ashton Kutcher, and Melissa Sagemiller that was released on September Kevin Michael Costner (born January 18, 1955) is an American Actor, producer and Academy Award -winning director Christopher Ashton Kutcher ( commonly known as Ashton Kutcher (born February 7 1978 is an American actor and former fashion model best known for playing Michael The Perfect Storm (ISBN 0-393-04016-X is a non-fiction Book written by Sebastian Junger and published by Little Brown and Company in 1997

Prior to a realignment of enlisted aviation rates throughout the Coast Guard circa 1999, the AST rate was called ASM.

External links

• USCG AST duty description
• U. S. Coast Guard Rescue Swimmer Program
• Story about the Rescue Swimmer in 2004
• Rescue Swimmer Wings