A Coast Guard Air Station Sitka crew medevaced a female cruise ship passenger in need of emergency medical care Tuesday morning.
Petty Officer 1st Class David Mosley, a District 17 public information spokesman, said the cruise ship Diamond Princess contacted the 17th Coast Guard District Command Center around 1:40 a.m. and requested a medevac for an 81-year-old woman showing signs of a possible blocked artery in her leg. The ship was in Frederick Sound, north of Admiralty Island.
The Coast Guard launched a Sitka-based MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter crew to the scene after the woman showed no signs of improvement.
The helicopter crew arrived at 4:28 a.m. and safely hoisted the woman from the ship and took her to Juneau. She was then medevaced to Seattle for advanced medical care at about 5:10 a.m.
Comments (4)
Add commentDid anyone else notice
Did anyone else notice that it was almost three hours after they called that the helo arrived on scene? I know it was the middle of the night, but I am not sure I would want to wait three hours after calling in that my boat was sinking or something like that. Not exactly a speedy response...
Well.....
See, the reason that it took so long was that the chopper spent the better part of an hour flying around north of Admiralty island looking for Fredrick sound.....
The real story here is exactly who was lost? The Ships pilot? The Coast Guard? Or, The Empire? All of the above?
Can somebody please look at a chart and tell us where "Fredrick sound” is located with respect to Admiralty Island?
BTW: Empire Staff: Learn to fact check please, It’s part of the job when you are a reporter.
Confused also!
It's a given we're gonna see some anomalies here and we get to smirk and slap our knees with glee, when we catch em. But, if you really wanna get down to it, according to the article, only the helo 'crew' was dispatched and only the helo 'crew' arrived at that late time for the rescue. So, the answer is that maybe the 'crew' had to walk there. Peace! :)
Hmmmm...
Quite correct. Compounding the problem was that once the crew was on scene, they were faced with either walking all the way back to the get the aircraft or carrying the patient out on a stretcher. Either way it gets to be a longish sort of night.