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No, they use harnesses or baskets. And there’s a rescue swimmer to make it less likely that you die.

https://youtu.be/1B1dnSf6rPk is one example but there are plenty videos of these guys (heroes).

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For rescuing small numbers of people from a helicopter, yes. If you have a large number of people in the water, and you are rescuing from a surface vessel, you would likely deploy netting (at the very least as backup)
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