there is nothing else in the world that
matters; you’re just so focused on this
one thing and helping this person.”
United States Air Force Senior Airman and Pararescue
Jumper, Chris Sanders, was a University of North Carolina
Chapel Hill graduate in 2006 who found his way onto the
WBOR squad the summer of 2008. The initial two weeks of
training, he says, was one of the hardest things he had done at
the time. The most difficult aspect of the job was adjusting to
the overwhelming responsibility that came with it.
“You sit on that stand, look out on the beach and, depending
what stand you’re at, you might have thousands of people in a
mile-long stretch of beach that you are technically responsible
for,” he says.
Now, as a pararescue jumper stationed in Afghanistan,
Sanders’ responsibility shifted from rescuing beachgoers to res-cuing
the men and women of the U.S. military.
“We work a shift from 2 a.m. to 2 p.m., wake up, get on
shift, do a gear swap, stand by and wait for missions,” Sanders
says. “They are pretty much all rescue missions. When guys get
hurt on the ground they send out a request for pick up and we
go pick up the injured guys, treat them and take them to the
hospital.”
“When you’re making a rescue … there is nothing else in
the world that matters; you’re just so focused on this one thing
and helping this person,” he says. “I definitely realized that that
summer and it pushed me to do what I’m doing now. It feels
good because you do all this training and it is used to actually
help somebody. Somewhere in the back of your mind you know
that person is better off because of you.”
Sanders and another guard rescued seven- and nine-year-old
boys north of Johnnie Mercer’s Pier the summer they served at
Wrightsville Beach.
The two boys in distress were spotted between the stands they
were manning. Sanders and a fellow guard jumped into action.
“We both had a pretty long way to go to get to them,” he
says. “They ended up being fine; the one kid I ended up grab-bing
was unconscious when I first got to him, but after I jarred
him awake, he started coughing up.”
Sanders says the thing he had the biggest problem dealing
with after the incident was the fact that he had not seen the
boys first.
“Especially with what I’m doing now, I see some pretty
messed up stuff and it doesn’t faze me too much, except for
when things do not go exactly the way I expect them to in terms
of my performance,” he says.
{CHRIS}
“When you’re making a rescue . . .
DAVID CLAWSON Sanders sports a few more pieces of
equipment in his turnout gear than when
he wore just a whistle and a safety buoy,
but he still practices the lifesaving skills
he learned in WBOR.
24
WBM
august 2012