Real Rescue

Season 1 Coming Soon

Real Rescue Podcast

Get notified at launch Meet the guests
An instructor in a helmet and rescue vest talks with a group of paddlers on a wooded riverbank.

The show

Rescue starts long before anyone's in the water

Most rescue podcasts replay the incident. Real Rescue is about everything that comes before it: how people train, how they learn to decide under pressure, and how they build a crew that will actually show up for each other.

Host Jordan Taylor sits down with the people who shaped modern river rescue and asks what they practice, what they learned the hard way, and how the field of rescue is changing.

Rescue culture always needs to change. We never have the final answer. We have to be able to adapt to the team that we have, the gear we have, the terrain that we’re in.

Jordan Taylor

Your host

Jordan Taylor

Jordan has been teaching whitewater since 1993. They founded Paddlesport Institute, a river school in Washington, DC, and train the next generation of kayak, canoe and rescue instructors as an ACA Instructor Trainer Educator.

Along the way they've taught for Outward Bound, NOLS, Madawaska Kanu Centre and Rocky Mountain Outdoor Center. What students remember is the welcoming space Jordan builds to train: rigorous on technique, and safe enough to try the thing that might not work the first time.

Jordan sits on the ACA Safety and Rescue Committee and is working to expand rescue training.

  • 1993Teaching whitewater since
  • 200+Swiftwater students in three years
  • 120+New instructors trained in three years
Jordan Taylor rowing a loaded raft through a canyon, wearing a red helmet, drysuit and blue life jacket.
A rescuer in a helmet and drysuit stands on a rock at the edge of a rapid holding a coiled yellow throw rope.
Jordan mid-air in a flat, shallow dive into moving water.
Jordan grinning in a black kayak, wearing a pink top and a helmet with a unicorn horn, with other paddlers behind.

What we’re realizing as rescuers and in the medical field, is that when the people receiving our care are treated as whole humans, their outcomes improve.

Jordan Taylor

The guests

Legends of rescue

The people who wrote the field guides, developed the techniques, and shaped the field of swiftwater rescue.

  • Nate Ostis

    Nate Ostis

    Founder, Wilderness Rescue International

    On rivers since 1988. Teaches swiftwater rescue, wilderness medicine and risk management worldwide, instructs for the Responder Alliance, and wrote the award-winning NOLS River Rescue Field Guide.

  • Julie Munger

    Julie Munger

    Co-founder, Sierra Rescue International

    More than 30 years teaching swiftwater and technical rescue to everyone from Air Force pararescue jumpers to river guides. Rescue 3 Western Regional Director and a former world-champion US Women's Rafting Team member.

  • Jim Coffey

    Jim Coffey

    Founder, Esprit Whitewater

    Chair of the ACA Swiftwater Rescue Committee and the person behind R3: Rescue for River Runners, watched more than a million times. Has taught and guided in nearly 60 countries.

  • Elisha McArthur

    Elisha McArthur

    Co-founder, Worldwide Women of Whitewater

    A whitewater professional since 1999. Co-owns Canyon River Instruction near Salida, Colorado, and holds top-level ACA credentials in both rafting and swiftwater rescue.

  • David Solana paddling a yellow kayak over a waterfall

    David Solana

    Creator, Paddle Bike Climb Dive

    A Potomac regular whose YouTube channel is where Mid-Atlantic paddlers check lines and levels. Breaks down rescues, incidents and close calls from the DC boating scene.

    Photographer: Andres Garcia

  • Dr. Stephanie Lareau

    Dr. Stephanie Lareau

    Emergency physician, Carilion Clinic

    Professor at the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine, where she directs the Wilderness Medicine Fellowship and has led research on hypothermia resuscitation. A swiftwater rescue instructor and member of the ACA Safety and Rescue Committee.

  • Mike Mather

    Mike Mather

    Rescue 3 & ACA Instructor Trainer Educator

    Over 35 years teaching technical rescue around the world, from swiftwater and boat operations to rope work. Known for a clear, unconventional style and a shelf of national awards.

  • Eric Brooks paddling a red kayak through a large rapid

    Eric Books

    Instructor, Calleva River School

    Grew up paddling around DC and first ran Great Falls in 1993. Spent more than 20 years teaching and leading trips with Tom McEwan, and won the Cheat Downriver Race in 2025 and 2026.

  • Jesse Pulliam paddling a blue kayak past a boulder

    Jesse Pulliam

    Outdoor educator, Calleva

    Started in sea kayaks in Florida and learned whitewater in DC. Teaches kayaking, climbing and backpacking while earning a graduate degree in social work on the way to becoming a therapist.

If we are in a desperate situation, we stop thinking about who the person helping us loves or looks like. When we need help from another human, we just want them to be human.

Jordan Taylor

Season 1

First up, coming soon

A preview of the conversations in the first season.

  • The Other Green Zone

    With Nate Ostis

    Nate has spent a career teaching swiftwater rescue. Lately he's been just as vocal about stress injuries that rescuers face from the long haul and from single hard days, and what psychological first response looks like on a team.

  • Owning Mistakes in Whitewater

    With David Solana

    Plenty of paddling footage is highlight reels and carnage. David slows his own clips down and says out loud what went well and what he'd do differently, including lessons learned the hard way.

  • All Women? All Forward!

    With Elisha McArthur

    Elisha started in whitewater in the '90s, then built her own company and founded a non-profit supporting women in whitewater around the globe. Recently she's been offering all-women's courses, the training environment she wishes she'd had.