Medevac is third launch of 2020 for Aberdeen Lifeboats
Aberdeen’s all-weather lifeboat was called to perform a medical evacuation of a crew member from an oilfield platform supply vessel (PSV) at anchor in Aberdeen Bay this evening, Friday 3 January 2020 – less than 24 hours after two other Aberdeen lifeboats were out on search operations last night.
Today’s medevac was triggered when the PSV crewmember complained of chest pain and numbness in one side of his body – symptoms typically associated with heart attack.
The Master asked UK Coastguard for assistance in getting the casualty to hospital as quickly as possible; Aberdeen Lifeboat ‘Bon Accord’ was tasked, launched at 5.15pm and weaved her way through the unusually busy Aberdeen Bay anchorage (the volunteer lifeboat crew counted at least 30 vessels at anchor, as the radar and AIS images attest).
Michael Cowlam, coxswain of Aberdeen Lifeboat during the operation, says: “Conditions were excellent – perfect visibility and a gentle swell from the gentle offshore breeze. The challenge was finding the right vessel in the densely crowded anchorage. None of us had ever seen it so busy.”
The lifeboat came alongside the PSV around 5.30pm and transferred two casualty-care qualified crew members aboard the PSV to assess the casualty’s condition. Having assessed him as fit for transfer to the lifeboat and onward to shore, the man was brought aboard the lifeboat which returned to her berth at 6.15pm, where the casualty was handed into the care of the Scottish Ambulance Service.
Today’s service came less than 24 hours after, first, Aberdeen’s D-class inshore lifeboat and then Bon Accord’s Y-boat daughter craft were launched on Thursday night to assist Police Scotland in a riverbank search of the River Dee. Concern had been raised for the safety of a missing elderly gentleman who was known to be suffering from dementia and potentially in a confused state. The crews searched extensively but were stood down when, happily, a member of the public found the missing man in the city centre.
Bill Deans MBE, lifeboat operations manager at Aberdeen Lifeboat Station, says “For all three of Aberdeen’s lifeboats to be called out on service in the first three days of a New Year is exceptional. I can’t remember a start to the year like it in my 40-plus years’ service at Aberdeen Lifeboat Station.”
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