A passenger was rescued from a cruise ship off the British Columbia coast and airlifted to a Victoria hospital last week after suffering a medical emergency. The Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre Victoria responded to a call for a medical evacuation from the Ovation of the Seas on Aug. 9. The Royal Caribbean Cruises vessel was about 100 kilometres northwest of Tofino when a rescue helicopter and airplane were dispatched from 19 Wing Comox. The CH-149 Cormorant helicopter and CC-295 Kingfisher rescue plane met the ship at sea in an operation captured on video and shared by the Canadian Armed Forces on Tuesday. The Kingfisher arrived first to co-ordinate the medevac and provide overwatch while search-and-rescue technicians were lowered onto the ship’s deck from the Cormorant. The technicians treated and prepared the patient for transfer while the patient’s spouse was hoisted onto the helicopter in a rescue basket. Once the patient was hoisted, the couple were flown to hospital in Victoria, according to a statement from the Department of National Defence. Medical evacuations from cruise ships have become a relatively routine operation for rescue crews based at 19 Wing Comox, with more than one million cruise passengers travelling aboard hundreds of ships between Vancouver, Victoria and Alaska each summer.
