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Eighteen weeks ago, 11 students came to Elizabeth City to join Aviation Survival Technician class 67-01. Three of them graduated Friday.

With an attrition rate of more than 50 percent, the AST school is one of the Coast Guard's most demanding schools. Training to jump from a helicopter into raging seas, or dangle from a cable above a sinking vessel in thrashing winds is a difficult task.

Prospective rescue swimmers sign up to join the AST school and often wait more than a year before reporting to the Aviation Technical Training Center in Elizabeth City.

Eleven students made up AST Class 61-07, which reported to ATTC in March. Third Class Petty Officers Stevie Nicoll, Brannan Hood and Craig Powers graduated on Friday.

Petty Officer First Class Gene Ward, one of the lead instructors of Class 61-07, compared people who want to be rescue swimmers to those who choose to be firefighters.

"It definitely takes a mental toughness," Ward said. "The person that chooses to do this has a competitive nature."

Most rescue swimmers also take part in other competitive physical activities, such as triathlons, marathons or bike races, Ward said.

Despite a high level of physical fitness, many students are not successful in the program because of the mental aspect of the job.

"Their comfort level in the water is what gets a lot of them," Ward said of the AST students who cannot complete the program. Many do not complete the four-month training required before entering the AST class in Elizabeth City. More than half of those do not graduate.

Prospective students enroll in the Coast Guard's Airman Program hoping to become qualified. Before coming to Elizabeth City, candidates take part in a four-month program at an Air Station. The program helps to prepare them for the intense training they will receive at the Aviation Technical Training Center in Elizabeth City.

Beginning with the first week of the school, the students are put through difficult workouts and many hours of physical training outdoors and in the base pool. Repetitions increase, and the workouts grow more intense as the class progresses.

Stevie Nicoll, a 22 year-old AST student originally from Camden County, has wanted to be a rescue swimmer since he was a child.

"I used to watch the rescue swimmers training right in front of my house," Nicoll said. He was home schooled, and remembers sitting in his house and watching the helicopters conduct training exercises outside the window.

Nicoll has always liked the ocean, and as he grew up, he started surfing as well.

"I like being near the water," Nicoll said. "The Coast Guard just seemed to be the right thing for me and my parents also recommended that for me."

Nicoll's family has a background in the military. His father was in the Navy, and his grandfather served in the Marine Corps and Army.

The first week of training was difficult for Nicoll, who has been in the Coast Guard for a year, and was stationed on a 110-foot boat ported in Atlantic Beach, N.C. before entering the airman program.

"It's a lot to take in, and a lot of work," Nicoll said. "I try just to do what I'm supposed to do, when I'm supposed to do it."

Craig Powers came into the Airman program as a Machinery Technician Second Class. Powers was designated as the class leader, because he has been in the Coast Guard for nearly eight years – the longest of any student in the class. Originally from Cincinnati, Ohio, Powers is married, and completed his airman program in Cape Cod, Mass.

Powers started the program a year ago, but fractured a bone in his foot during the third week, and he could not continue in the class. Being exposed to the program the first time around helped him anticipate what was coming the second time around.

"It's about what I expected," Powers said of the first week of training. "But adjusting to a week of high-level stress and working out seven hours a day still takes some getting used to," he said.

The 28 year old wanted to be a rescue swimmer when he completed boot camp, but at 18 years old, he was not physically ready for the program, he said.

He met a lot of rescue swimmers when he was stationed in Sitka, Alaska, and spent a year on a 110-foot boat.

"It was a good experience, but it wasn't what I wanted to do," Powers said. "I wanted to be a rescue swimmer."

Brannan Hood has also been through part of the training before. He made it through the fourth week of the course, in January, but failed the buddy towing basket test three times.

The experience helped him to be better prepared this time around. Still, he also had a difficult time adjusting to the grueling first week of the class.

"It's probably the mental aspect that's the hardest thing for most people," Hood said. "But having been through it before, I know what to expect right now."

Hood is originally from Saluda, S.C., and has been married for two years . He completed his airman program at Air Station Houston, Texas.

Hood said he has wanted to be a rescue swimmer since he joined the Coast Guard a year and a half ago.

"I think a lot of people joined to be swimmers," Hood said. "It's the most rewarding job in the Coast Guard."

The Coast Guard's rescue swimmer program began after a tragedy at sea more than 20 years ago. The Marine Electric sank off the coast of Virginia in 1983, and 31 of 34 crewmen died. Although Coast Guard rescue helicopters were sent to the scene, the ship's crewmen in the water were numbed by hypothermia and could not get themselves into rescue baskets. A vital final link between the rescue helicopter and the victim – a rescue swimmer – did not exist in the Coast Guard. A Navy helicopter with a rescue swimmer later joined the Marine Electric rescue effort and helped recover some of the crew but only three people survived.

Following the tragedy, Congress mandated that the Coast Guard establish a helicopter rescue swimmer program. The Coast Guard Authorization Act of 1984 forged the way for the Aviation Survival Technician program. The legislation led to the establishment of a new enlisted rate called Aviation Survivalman, or ASM. The rate was later changed to Aviation Survival Technician, or AST.

By the end of 1984, five Coast Guard members had completed the Navy Rescue Swimmer training course at Naval Air Station Pensacola, Fla. These "first five" were the first operational rescue swimmers when Air Station Elizabeth City reported operational on March 5, 1985.

Air Station Elizabeth City recorded the first life saved by a Coast Guard rescue swimmer on May 4, 1985 when a severely hypothermic man was saved after clinging to the bow of his capsized boat. With the survivor unable to climb into a rescue basket, a rescue swimmer was deployed into the water and pulled the survivor to safety. Training for the Aviation Survivalman rating moved to ATTC in Elizabeth City on Jan. 1, 1986.