When the mayday call from the crippled Alaska Ranger arrived at a remote Coast Guard station on St. Paul Island at 3 a.m., Petty Officer 2nd Class O'Brien Hollow knew it wasn't a drill.

Nearly 200 miles off shore, the fishing trawler was flooding quickly, frigid sea water filling its rudder room.

Owned by the Seattle-based Alaska Fish Company, the vessel would soon slip below the waves, leaving 47 crew members adrift in the Bering Sea -- some in rafts, others bobbing in the water -- waiting for rescue.

"One of the officers comes in dressed in his pajamas and knocks on the door," said Hollow, of Helena, recalling the string of events that unfolded last Sunday off the Alaskan coast. "He says to wake up. There's a search and rescue case. Get dressed."

The rescue crew, one of several that would respond that day, scrambled into its gear. The team busted snow drifts in a race to the airport where their MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter was max-fueled and ready to fly.

And fly they did, setting a mark for the sinking trawler. More than 90 minutes passed before the rescue team would arrive on scene.

"It's just a sea of lights," said 33-year-old Hollow, speaking Friday over the phone. "It was like pulling up to a poorly lit airport with white flashing lights scattered in a long, distinct string."

"There were strobe lights everywhere in the water scattered over a mile," added aircraft commander Lt. Brian McLaughlin. "It was an absolutely grim, harrowing scene, seeing all those people in the water."

Battling waves

Based at Loran Station on St. Paul Island, this is what the Coast Guard crew had been training for. The remote signal station serves as a forward rescue base for the Bering Sea crab fisheries.

The first week into their two-week shift, things remained quiet. Then Sunday comes and the radio crackles -- a mayday call. Just like that, the serenity is shattered.

Despite their expectations -- despite the rigors involved in becoming a member of this team -- none of the men could anticipate the hours to come.

"When we arrived, we certainly didn't expect what we saw," Hollow said.

McLaughlin added, "I've been flying for six years now, and I'd never seen anything like that. The Pacific Ocean has an absolutely different characteristic to it."

Pilot Lt. Steve Bonn made a quick recon flight over the scene, giving crew members a taste of things to come. Squalls of blinding snow drifted over the sea, forcing the crew to shut off its lights. Far below, members of the Alaska Ranger crew waited helplessly for rescue.

Their ship was already gone.

With little time to waste, Hollow attached himself to the cable while Petty Officer 2nd Class Robert Debolt, a 28-year-old flight mechanic from Walla Walla, Wash., lowered Hollow to the water. The waves rose 20 feet and the wind, at 30 knots, drove a salty spray across ocean surface.

"It's really dynamic how much cable the flight mechanic lets out in the water," Hollow said. "And the pilots are flying with a quarter-mile visibility, or zero-zero, where they can't see the ocean or a horizon line. They're flying on instruments."

Affixed to the cable and armed with a strop, which Hollow described as a device used to wrap victims before hoisting, the Helena-born rescue swimmer made his way to each victim. One by one the crew hoisted the sea-cast drifters into the helicopter hovering in the gale, its brilliant light scanning the water.

"It was difficult to keep in position, mainly because it's dark and it's hard to keep a visual reference on the water," McLaughlin said. "I would call the swell sets as they came in so we could keep up with the rescue swimmer and survivors. You get over the survivors and the rescue swimmer, and each swell drags him back 50 feet or so."

Thinking back, Hollow expressed surprise at how fast the series of events unfolded. Instead of being gripped with fear, or panicked for their lives, most of the victims simply relaxed. Some even smiled.

"I knew you guys were coming to get us," one victim told Hollow.

"I was just praying you guys were going to come," said another.

There were others who, quite naturally, were terrified.

After all, Hollow noted, the victims of the shipwreck were floating alone in the North Pacific, 150 miles from shore in total darkness. Twenty foot waves tossed them up and down. Their ship, once firm below their feet, had vanished in 6,300 feet of water. The sea was only 36 degrees.

"One man we came upon was terrified and frozen beyond belief," Hollow said. "We couldn't get him into the basket. He wouldn't sit there like the rest of them. And when we got him up, he was so gripped with fear it took three guys, including the flight mechanic, to get him out of the basket."

Cutting it close

The distance from land and the number of people needing rescued posed challenges to the crew.

The Coast Guard Cutter Munro was 60 miles away when Hollow's team arrived. Even max-gassed, their Jayhawk only had five hours of flight time, and it took 90 minutes to reach the scene.

What's more, Hollow explained, it took 50 minutes to pluck the first 13 survivors from the icy water. While they tried to lower them to the nearby Alaska Warrior -- the Alaska Ranger's sister ship -- the frozen deck and tangle of cables made doing so impossible.

With few choices, the crew made the 30 minute flight out to the approaching Munro to unload their passengers and take on fuel -- a feat they accomplished without landing.

"With 13 people, plus the crew of four, it was the longest 30 minutes I've experienced in recent memory," Hollow said. "But everybody we had on board was in good condition by the time we got the helicopter warmed up. We were jam-packed in there. It was a steamy sea of survival suits."

Of the 47 passengers aboard the Alaska Ranger, 42 survived the incident. According to the Coast Guard, four bodies were recovered from the water and one was listed as missing at sea.

Hollow said the loss of five lives put a damper on the otherwise successful rescue, listed as the largest in recent Coast Guard memory.

"There were a couple moments with the last survivor where I was in the water waiting for the basket to come down," Hollow said. "I remember floating there and thinking of the gravity of what we were involved in, and looking around me constantly for other survivors. It absorbed a great deal of my thoughts -- we have to get everybody."

News hits home

That Sunday, Hollow's wife called Helena, telling her father-in-law John Hollow to start looking at the news.

With no television, he logged on to the Seattle Times and the Anchorage Daily News.

"I haven't talked to him," the elder Hollow said Friday. "He called last night from St. Paul, but I only know what I read in the paper. I think what he would tell you is that it takes a real team to do a rescue like that."

Hollow, himself a retired Navy seal, described his son as a good soccer player and skier. While in Helena, he swam for the Lions swim team.

"He was not a great swimmer, but he was a good swimmer," Hollow said. "We lived in the South Pacific for a couple years, and he was always comfortable in the water."

Click here to download audio of the Alaska Ranger mayday call.

Click here to download Coast Guard footage of the rescue operation.

Reporter Martin Kidston: 447-4086 or mkidston@helenair.com