AP Interview: Coast Guard swimmer says he fought waves, darkness to rescue 16 people from ocean

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Strapped into a harness, Josh Law was lowered from a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter into the rough Pacific Ocean in the pitch black night, far off the Mexican coast.The force of the helicopter blades pummeled the water, whipping up spray and turbulence. The Coast Guard rescue swimmer couldn’t hear anything over the noise or see anything in the darkness. Waves of 6 to 8 feet (1.8 to 2.4 meters) pummeled him.All he could do was follow the searchlight from the helicopter with the hope it would lead him to the more than two dozen people flung into the cold waters some 140 miles (225 kilometers) off the coast of Mexico’s Baja peninsula. He would personally rescue 16 of them.“I was experiencing exhaustion at that point," Law, 24, told The Associated Press in his first interview since the rescue. "We had very little sleep. But what I was experiencing was nothing compared to what they were at that point ... I just had to keep that in mind.”Over the next two hours in the predawn