This story was originally published on LincolnChronicle.com and is used with permission.
Unsure what they might face on the Monday afternoon call that a man had fallen into Thor’s Well at the base of Cape Perpetua, the four Coast Guard crewmen discussed possible rescue scenarios as they flew from North Bend.
The helicopter crew regularly flies past the majestic sinkhole that draws people to watch incoming tides flow from its maw before draining back into the sea. But none had ever visited it on foot.
“We didn’t know what to expect,” said rescue swimmer Tyler Gantt, 31, who would eventually pull the body of the still unidentified man from the water Monday afternoon. “There was talk about if this guy gets swept out to the open ocean and flying search patterns. And that’s pretty common for a case like this.”
The helicopter bucked “a pretty gnarly headwind” of 16-to-20 knots out of the north during the 20-minute flight from North Bend.
The crew talked about what they would do if the man was still clinging to a rock and how they would manage the hoist to lower Gantt. But when they arrived the firefighters on the ground asked them to fly directly above the hole and look down because they believed the man was still inside.
He was.
The body was face down in the water, appearing and disappearing as the ocean rose and fell 20 feet with each incoming and outgoing wave, filling it from below.
“When you show up to that it’s really just ‘Oh man, this sucks’,” Gantt said Tuesday in an interview with the Lincoln Chronicle. “But body recovery is important. Important for families to have closure and important for the fire department to not have to put themselves in harm’s way and potentially add more bodies to the disaster. Because the safest way to retrieve that body was what we did – hoisting him into the helicopter from directly above.”
But descending on a steel cable from a helicopter steadying against a headwind into a 20-foot diameter hole filling and emptying with crashing surf is no easy feat. And Gantt, who has 10 years of experience as a rescue swimmer, said it ranks among the most dangerous assignments he has faced.
Gantt has known he wanted to be a Coast Guard rescue swimmer since age eight, after watching Astoria-based crews on the news from his hometown of Hillsboro.
“I thought it was really cool and that’s kind of paved the way since,” he said. “That got me into swim lessons, which got me onto the swim team. And then swim team got me into my first job at 16 as a lifeguard at the Hillsboro pool.”
He joined the Coast Guard four years later.
He still remembers his first rescue as a lifeguard, pulling someone out of the pool.
“It felt good,” he said. “And I’ve been chasing it ever since. The rescues now are a little more crazy than a pool of course … And they’re not all enjoyable. Yesterday was not fun and not good. We gave the guy the best chance we could, but yeah, that’s where my passion for it comes from.”
After serving his mandatory 1½ years on a ship in Kodiak, Alaska, Gantt applied for and was accepted into rescue swimmer school. The notoriously difficult and physically grueling six-month school graduates only the most qualified.
“There’s a very high failure rate,” Gantt said. “Just to give you a snapshot, I had 26 members in my class and four of us graduated. And that’s pretty normal. The class before us only graduated two.”
Rescue swimmers rotate duty stations every four years. Gantt first served on Alabama’s Gulf Coast before moving on to Port Angeles, Wash., and then a year ago to North Bend.
The strong headwind Monday afternoon actually helped pilot Jimmy Hollingsworth hover above Thor’s Well as flight mechanic Dylan Morris operated the hoist to lower Gantt. Co-pilot Blake Thompson monitored the radio and watched the waves, calling them out as they came in to give a countdown before they arrived.
“Dylan and I talked about where I wanted to be hoisted down to and what the hoist would look like, ultimately deciding to leave me on the hook because I wasn’t going to disconnect with this one,” Gantt said. “Our plan was to put me down to the ground and treat it like a cliff rescue. We train a lot with vertical surface cliff rescues. So, I was going to hoist down to the rock and then while keeping tension on the cable, lean back and begin to climb into the Well.”
There was no solid rock, only barnacles and mussels lining the walls as Gantt, outfitted in a dry suit, neoprene gloves, helmet and boots descended into the hole.
Gantt was careful not to climb too far down because he could see overhangs and when the tide surged out, caverns and cavities farther below.
“I told Dylan the plan was as soon as I come off the rock and the grab the guy — just pull us back up,” Gantt said. “I don’t want to be floating in the Well for too long because the cable was played out and I have tension on the cable …”
Gantt said the cable could snap if it went slack as he rose with the waves and tightened as the waves dropped.
He made several efforts to grab the man, reaching for any part he could glimpse as the body appeared and then disappeared in the surf.
“But what was happening is I would dismount the rock to grab the guy, Dylan was super fast in pulling me back up, which is great, but it was also making it so I couldn’t quite get a hand hold on the guy. The unfortunate thing is I couldn’t see his whole body. I would only see something, and then I would grab that and then quickly have to realize what I’m grabbing and go from there to try and get my arms underneath his and around his back or chest.”
After a couple of missed attempts, Gantt communicated with hand signals to abort and hoist him up. He knew they had to reset. Firefighters radioed to ask if they were calling it quits.
“We said ‘No, we’ve just got to make some adjustments’,” Gantt said. “So Dylan and I talked a little bit and I told him once I dismount the rocks give me a few seconds, one one-thousand, two one-thousand and then pull us out of the water.”
The adjustment worked. It took a couple of tries but Gantt was able to get a grip on the man and Morris and Hollingsworth quickly maneuvered to set the pair on the flat rocks beside Thor’s Well. Gantt then secured the man with a strap and they were brought quickly aboard the helicopter.
The operation would last just 20 minutes.
Gantt, who is also the crew’s emergency medical technician, checked the man’s airway, breathing and circulation, and then finding no pulse began CPR as the helicopter swept toward Samaritan Pacific Communities Hospital in Newport.
As Gantt recalled the story for the Lincoln Chronicle on Tuesday from his home in Coos Bay, the soon-to-be father – a baby girl is due in two weeks – said the danger level was “up there” and that Thor’s Well is actually much smaller than he originally thought.
“It was a little bit tight in there,” Gantt said. “And just the psychological hurdle of being in there with a body that’s just surfacing out of the water whenever. You don’t know when or where and you’re in the water with them, is a tough thing to manage.”
There was the risk of breaking the cable, Gantt said, and then he would be inside Thor’s Well with the body.
“And I’d be better equipped wearing a dry suit and a helmet so if I hit my head, I’d probably be okay and be able to climb out. But there’s also like I said, some pretty deep caverns that go underneath the rocks and shoot out underneath that shelf. So to keep out of those was definitely on my mind the whole time.”
As the interview came to close, Gantt asked to share one last thing.
“I’ve heard of Thor’s Well and the lives it’s claimed in the past,” he said. “And I read this morning in the Chronicle that an hour after we departed the scene people were walking right back down to Thor’s Well and trying to get a look inside.
“Now, speaking as someone who’s been inside Thor’s Well, not very many people have been in it and lived. But speaking as someone who’s been in it – there’s nothing to see in there. It’s a hole in a rock. It’s not worth risking your life to peer over the edge and take a look inside. There’s nothing in it.
“The only cool thing about it to see is the waves coming out of the spout from a safe distance. That’s all I have to say about that.”
Garret Jaros covers the communities of Yachats, Waldport, south Lincoln County and natural resources issues for Lincoln Chronicle and can be reached at GJaros@YachatsNews.com
