NYPD scuba divers plunged into the Atlantic Ocean from a helicopter and made a grueling mile-long swim to shore Tuesday during a drill simulating an air-sea rescue gone terribly wrong.
One by one, seven divers, part of the elite Emergency Services Unit, jumped from the deck of an NYPD helicopter that hovered dangerously close to the water off the coast of the Rockaways.
Their heads bobbed just above the surface as the helicopter - only 5 to 10 feet above them - churned up a furious swirl of propellor-whipped wind and seaspray that the divers call "rotor-wash."
"It's like hurricane force winds if you are underneath it," said Sgt. Paul Reynolds.
His unit prides itself - together with NYPD Aviation - on being able to make it from their base at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn to any body of water in the city in under eight minutes.
Tuesday's "survival swim" prepared the divers for a potentially nightmarish situation in which, once deployed, the helicopter pilot would not be able take them back aboard and their life raft would fail them.
Before they began to swim for shore, the divers tested methods of signaling their location to comrades on land and aboard a helicopter more than a mile away.
The methods included using a mirror to reflect the sun's rays, setting off signal flares and a smoke signal as well as dropping a dye pack into the drink that turned the water kelly green.
Since this was only a drill, the divers laughed heartily when one of the flares proved to be a dud.
But then the tough part began.
The divers headed for shore. They swam with their backs to the coastline, primarily using their legs.
"They're just using their fins," Reynolds said. "The idea is to rest as much as possible because it's conceivable [that in a real-life situation] they could be 20 miles off shore."
Reynolds said the divers have to pass a rigorous physical exam just to qualify for the unit. They also have to keep themselves in tip-top physical shape.
"A lot of them are former military. Motivated. Kinda' like a cut above," Reynolds said, as the police boat turned away, leaving the divers to their exhausting drill.
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