A Middle-of-the-Night Medevac

The US Coast Guard once again demonstrated this morning, that the people aboard a cruise ship don't need to have any connection to the US for the US Coast Guard to step in and help them. As we pointed out a couple weeks ago, you usually think of the US Coast Guard being called on by US-based ships and flying in to help an American who boarded in an American port, but the Coast Guard routinely rescues people aboard ships just passing by US coastlines.

Late last night (Monday at 10:45pm), Coast Guard watchstanders received a call from Marella Explorer 2, which most of us will remember as the former 71,500-ton Celebrity Century, asking for assistance medevacing a 29-year-old Filipino crew member who had suffered a heart attack. Marella is the British-based line which used to be Thomson and is now owned by German travel conglomerate TUI.

What makes the operation even more impressive is that the crew had to fly to the ship 50 miles off the coast of St. Coix from their base in Puerto Rico on the moonless night using night-vision goggles with the only light in the area coming from the ship itself. The video below was shot with the same technology. 

Details appeared in the November 26 issue of Cruise News Daily.