Coming Back Alive, Spike Walker
Coming Back Alive, Spike Walker
1 Rating(s)
List: $19.99 | Sale: $13.99
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Coming Back Alive
The True Story of the Most Harrowing Search and Rescue Mission Ever Attempted on Alaska's High Seas

Author: Spike Walker

Narrator: Paul Heitsch

Unabridged: 8 hr 40 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 03/13/2018


Synopsis

When the fishing vessel La Conte sinks suddenly at night in one-hundred-mile-per-hour winds and record ninety-foot seas during a savage storm in January 1998, her five crewmen are left to drift without a life raft in the freezing Alaskan waters and survive as best they can.

One hundred fifty miles away, in Sitka, Alaska, an H-60 Jayhawk helicopter lifts off from America's most remote Coast Guard base in the hopes of tracking down an anonymous Mayday signal. A fisherman's worst nightmare has become a Coast Guard crew's desperate mission. As the crew of the La Conte begin to die one by one, those sworn to watch over them risk everything to pull off the rescue of the century.

Spike Walker's memoir of his years as a deckhand in Alaska, Working on the Edge, was hailed by James A. Michner as "masterful . . . will become the definitive account of this perilous trade, an addition to the literature of the sea." In Coming Back Alive, Walker has crafted his most devastating book to date. Meticulously researched through hundreds of hours of taped interviews with the survivors, this is the true account of the La Conte's final voyage and the relationship between Alaskan fishermen and the search and rescue crews who risked their lives to save them.

About Spike Walker

Spike Walker spent more than ten seasons aboard some of the most successful crab boats in the Alaskan fleet and rode out one of the worst storms in Alaska's history. He is the author of several works of nonfiction, including Working on the Edge, Nights of Ice, and Coming Back Alive.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Eric_W on February 01, 2015

*** Contains multiple spoilers. ** Walker celebrates the Coast Guard SAR (Search and Rescue — not to be confused with SARS) teams that operate in Alaska's forbidding winters. These people risk their lives to save those who have usually made some really dumb decisions. Flying at any time in Alaska is......more

Goodreads review by Cropredy on September 23, 2023

I'll start by saying this is better than 'A Perfect Storm'. Think of this book as 'Into (very) Cold Water' or 'Into Gale Force Winds' or both. The author does a good job of grabbing you with a rescue mission in the first chapter, then, lays the background of the Coast Guard's air-sea rescue units. Eq......more

Goodreads review by Judy on April 11, 2015

Horrifying and beyond imagination. I couldn't put this real life Alaska ocean rescue story down. Being a pilot, I understood viscerally that the conditions were way below flying weather. I found myself tense along with the pilots trying to make the rescue. There is no doubt that we have heroes among......more

Goodreads review by Jennifer on February 05, 2022

With waves described as 'mountains of the sea,' 5 fisherman donned their survival suits and tied themselves together with sophisticated knots and jumped into a merciless Alaskan sea awaiting rescue that may or may not come. My favorite part of this book was learning about the technicalities of these......more

Goodreads review by Jill schubert on January 23, 2018

Couldn't out this book down! What a story! I couldn't finish it fast enough. The men and women of the USCG are heroes and deserve a special place in heaven!......more