Evacuations of ailing passengers from cruise ships by helicopter are fairly routine these days, but one yesterday was particularly swift.
An entertainer aboard Carnival Victory had a medical condition which required transport to a shoreside hospital, and the ship put in a call to the US Coast Guard about 12:30pm on Sunday. At the time, the ship was about 60 miles southeast of Nantucket (MA). By 1pm, a Jayhawk helicopter was already hovering over the Carnival Victory's deck ready to hoist the patient. It usually takes considerably longer for a helicopter to arrive on the scene because one usually has to be put into the air and fly some distance to the ship.
In this case, the extra-fast response time was possible because the Jayhawk was part of a group of Coast Guard assets already nearby that had been searching for a missing scuba diver and was just diverted from that task force. (That search had been ongoing since Saturday afternoon.) The Coast Guard said the smooth sea conditions made for a very easy pick-up. The patient was transported to the Hyannis airport and taken from there to a hospital on Cape Cod.
