CareFlight rescues ill man from ship (180km off Darwin)
An ill man was rescued from a ship at sea off Darwin and flown to hospital by CareFlight today. The national search and rescue agency, Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA), alerted Darwin’s CareFlight to the man’s plight shortly before 9 am. The helicopter crew of pilot Ian Smart, air crewman John Costin and rescue officer Peter Murphy, accompanied by a nurse from NT Health & Families, flew to the supply ship Petra Frontier 180 km north-west of Darwin to effect the rescue. Mr Costin said the 50-year-old ship’s engineer was sufferiing severe abdominal pain, possibly from appendicitis. Mr Murphy was lowered onto the ship then accompanied the man as he was winched five metres up to the hovering helicopter. AMSA sent a fixed-wing search aircraft from Darwin to accompany the helicopter during the long flight over water and to relay a radio message about the man’s condition back to Royal Darwin Hospital. The nurse treated the sick man as he was flown back to Royal Darwin Hospital. The man remained in a stable condition, but still in pain, on landing at the hospital helipad just before 1 pm. The successful mission continued a variety of search, rescue and medical missions which Darwin’s CareFlight has completed in the Top End since the national charity based a dedicated helicopter in the city in January to provide rapid-response support to the NT Government and rescue agencies. A not-for-profit organisation, CareFlight also a jet air ambulance operation in Darwin with its own doctors and nurses to undertake international and interstate patient missions. CareFlight also operates jet air ambulances from bases in Sydney, Cairns and Perth.
For further information please contact NRMA CareFlight director Ian Badham on 0418 245 748.
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