Coast Guard officers recall responding to both Key Bridge collapse and Potomac crash within a year

It's not a stretch to say that members of the Coast Guard like P.O. Tyler McGuiness could go an entire career without ever deploying to a catastrophe like last month's midair collision between an American Airlines jet and an Army helicopter over the Potomac River.

But McGuinness and dozens more, including P.O. Seth Kowsky, have now seen that kind of disaster not once, but twice in the last 12 months — the D.C. collision in the Potomac and the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge last March.

When the bridge collapsed in Baltimore, Kowsky, assigned to the Curtis Bay Station, and McGuiness, assigned to Station Washington, were among the first to respond. But surprisingly, they've never talked about the shared experience until now.