A Coast Guard team successfully performed a medevac operation for an injured man from a fishing boat some eight miles off the coast of Honokaa this past Monday, both KITV and Big Island Now reported. The captain of the fishing vessel HONUA-OE alerted the Coast Guard at 3:22 p.m. about a crew member who had sustained an abdominal injury after falling into a porthole while approximately 20 miles north of Hawi.
The situation was assessed by Sector Honolulu watchstanders who then coordinated with a duty flight surgeon, deciding expeditious aerial extraction was vital, even though the man's ordeal, marked by pain was met with steely resolve, manifest by the combined efforts of those racing against the sun that was sinking ever closer to the horizon. According to KITV, a helicopter crew was dispatched from the Coast Guard Air Station Barbers Point, meeting up with the stricken vessel offshore of Honokaa around 8 p.m. that Monday evening.
The Coast Guard's swift action was instrumental in delivering the injured fisherman, aged 51, to the airport in Hilo, where he was further transferred to emergency medical services. According to a report by Big Island Now, after being hoisted aboard the MH-65 Dolphin helicopter by the helicopter crew the injured man was in stable condition at the time of transport.
