WestMT

Six weeks ago, the captain of a Japanese container ship was hit by severe abdominal pain in the North Pacific. The nearest U.S. rescue helicopter was more than 1,000 miles away. His ship, the One Majesty, was 58 miles south of Adak, Alaska. He was 58 years old and he needed a hospital. There was no hospital. There was ocean in every direction. The U.S. Coast Guard in Kodiak launched an MH-60 Jayhawk anyway. A thousand miles is Tampa to New York. No helicopter flies that in one hop. So the Jayhawk hopped down the Aleutian Islands, refueling at Dutch Harbor and again at Adak. That solved the fuel. It did not solve the crew. Nobody should fly a thousand miles through Aleutian weather and then hold a hover over a moving ship. So the Alaska Air National Guard sent an HC-130J. It carried a fresh Coast Guard helicopter crew and two pararescuemen out to Adak to take over. And if that one helicopter broke down out there? A second Jayhawk flew to Cold Bay just to stand by. The fresh crew flew the last 58 miles over open water with the HC-130J watching from above. They lowered the hoist to the deck and lifted the captain off. Back at Adak he was moved onto the HC-130J and flown to Anchorage. Two Coast Guard helicopters. One Air Guard rescue plane. A relief crew. Two pararescuemen. More than a thousand miles. All of it for one Japanese sailor none of them had ever met. From Japan: we saw this. Thank you.