[B]HAGATNA, Guam[\/B]\u2014From a 24-hour command center here in Apra Harbor, the U.S. Coast Guard coordinated the successful medevac of two male crew members from a an ocean-going bulk carrier 750 nautical miles north of Saipan.<\/p>\n
The 36-hour mission began when the container ship Occam\u2019s Razor emailed the Coast Guard in Hagatna for help Sept. 26. The container ship at that time was 750 nautical miles north of Saipan in favorable weather conditions\u2014with seas of less than four feet and winds out of the east at 10 knots and overcast skies.<\/p>\n
The ship\u2019s master reported that two crew members were seriously injured and in critical condition after an accident occurred when cargo shifted unexpectedly. A U.S. Air Force long-range aircraft from Kadena Air Force Base in Japan launched six pararescue jumpers\u2014or \u201cPJs\u201d\u2014to the deck of the container ship for medical assistance at 2:30 a.m. (Guam Standard Time) Sept. 27.<\/p>\n
PJs are elite special operations command personnel with advanced medical training and often jump or parachute into hostile or \u201cdenied-entry areas\u201d to recover downed military pilots. They are also deployed, however, on humanitarian missions where no other help is available for hours or hundreds of miles.<\/p>\n
Coast Guard search and rescue controllers in Guam directed the container ship to a position approximately 150 nautical miles from Saipan and early Sunday both crew members were successfully airlifted by Navy helicopter to Guam for medical treatment.<\/p>\n
Two U.S. Navy search and rescue helicopter crews from Guam\u2019s Navy Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron Two Five (HSC-25) flew out to the vessel at the offshore rendezvous point and picked up the injured crew members and PJs. <\/p>\n
One patient went into cardiac arrest just before the helicopter hoist and the PJs performed CPR for 70 minutes to save his life. That crew member was transferred to Naval Hospital Guam at 8 a.m. Sunday and the second was delivered approximately 45 minutes later.<\/p>\n
For more information about this case, please contact the Coast Guard\u2019s public affairs office in Honolulu at 808-535-3230 or Lt. Elizabeth Buendia of Coast Guard Sector Guam at 671-355-4818. (USCG)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
From a 24-hour command center here in Apra Harbor, the U.S. Coast Guard coordinated the successful medevac of two male crew members from a an ocean-going bulk carrier 750 nautical miles north of Saipan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-126642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126642\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}