Kodiak Coast Guard Crews Kept Busy Out West

Annie Ropeik/KUCB
A mariner possibly suffering from appendicitis was medevac’ed from a vessel near Unalaska on Saturday.
The Coast Guard sent an MH-65 Dolphin helicopter from the cutter Alex Haley to hoist the 40-year-old man from the 559-foot bulk carrier Ken Ei, a Panama-flagged vessel. It was about 100 miles northwest of Unalaska at the time.
The man was suffering from abdominal pain, and the Coast Guard duty flight surgeon determined he might have had appendicitis. The crewman was transported first to Dutch Harbor, where a larger MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter took him to Cold Bay to meet a commercial medflight for further treatment in Anchorage.
There were reportedly 40-mile-an-hour winds and seven-foot seas on scene during the medevac.
The Coast Guard forward-deploys crews from Air Station Kodiak around the Bering Sea to cut response times during this busy time of year. Saturday’s was their third medevac of past week, and their eighth in the region in the new year.