A cruise ship passenger had to be rescued off Vancouver Island yesterday and taken to hospital.
Members of the 442 rescue squadron in Comox were called to the Norwegian Jewel on June 12, after an alert went out about a passenger suffering from a medical condition that needed immediate transfer to hospital.
A CC-115 Buffalo fixed-wing aircraft and a CH-149 Cormorant helicopter responded to the ship, which was en route form Vancouver to Alaska and near Haida Gwaii at the time of the emergency call. Once aircraft were dispatched, the cruise ship turned around and made for Port Hardy to reduce the travel distance of rescuers.
Upon arrival at the ship, and in the middle of the sea, search and rescue technicians hoisted the passenger up to the helicopter along with a nurse from the ship to accompany the patient to hospital.
The patient was first taken to hospital in Comox, before being transferred to Nanaimo. No information has been released about their condition.
The 442 Transport and Rescue Squadron is the Victoria Joint Rescue Coordination Centre’s (JRCC) primary response team for air and sea rescues. They operate across 1.4 million square kilometres of mainly mountainous terrain in British Columbia and the Yukon, extending approximately 600 nautical miles offshore into the Pacific Ocean.
