guard officer, as a rescue swimmer. In the anime television series Yomigaeru Sora – Rescue Wings , the main character is a rescue helicopter pilot, but rescue swimmers also appear as regular members in each episode. The actress who played the main character in the live-action film based on the same work, Yuko Takayama, was the orphan of an Air Self-Defense Force medic who was killed in the line of duty. On the History Channel reality show Top Shot, one of the marksmen is U.S. Navy rescue swimmer Jamie Franks. U.S. Coast Guard rescue swimmers attracted international attention during the rescue operations following Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, Louisiana, and surrounding areas. It was reported that in the first five days following Katrina, Coast Guard crews performed more than 33,500 rescue and hoist operations of Katrina victims stranded on rooftops and in flood water. This was reportedly more than the Coast Guard had rescued worldwide in over 50 years. President George W. Bush awarded the active, reserve, auxiliary and civilian employees of the Coast Guard a Presidential Unit Citation and ribbon for their response to Hurricane Katrina. While Katrina brought domestic and international news coverage to Coast Guard rescue swimmers and their crews, their story was first shown on television in a series of 1999 specials on Discovery Channel, Coast Guard: Rescue Swimmers and Coast Guard: Helicopters to the Rescue. Along with covering the history and the demanding training rescue swimmers must complete, the specials also feature dramatic on-scene footage of several heroic rescues. The most-viewed rescue swimming event in the media was a marine rescue done by rescue swimmers during the Webtel.mobi Intercontinental Challenge on November 25, 2009. The Webtel.mobi Intercontinental Challenge was the first attempted intercontinental flight between Africa and Europe by man using jetwings, and it was broadcast live worldwide on television. Swiss pilot Yves Rossy, the person who had accepted the Webtel.mobi Intercontinental Challenge, had to ditch into the North Atlantic Ocean midway through the 30-mile flight from Morocco to Spain after his wing was destabilized by a large cumulonimbus cloud. After being located, an emergency marine rescue was undertaken by rescue swimmers live on television, with the Associated Press reporting that more than two billion people had viewed the rescue worldwide on the day of broadcast. The rescue swimmers for this emergency were Stuart Sterzel and Garth Eloff, both former special operators from Special Forces.