OCRACOKE, N.C. – Coast Guard rescue helicopter and boat crews medevaced a 50-year-old man after a dive accident approximately 15 miles southeast of Ocracoke Tuesday.
A dive boat Lion’s Paw crewmember called Coast Guard Station Hatteras Inlet via VHF channel 16 at 11:30 a.m. reporting that a first-time diver came up too fast from a depth of 100 feet and was unconscious.
A 47-foot rescue boat crew from Station Hatteras Inlet and a 25-foot rescue boat crew from Station Ocracoke launched to assist the man. After arriving on scene, the two rescue boat crews escorted the Lion’s Paw crew to Teaches Lair Marina where Hatteras emergency medical services personnel transferred the diver from the boat to a Coast Guard rescue helicopter from Air Station Elizabeth City at 1:30 p.m.
The rescue helicopter crew transported the patient to Sentara Leigh Hospital in Norfolk, Va.
“When the patient arrived at the hospital he was conscious and alert,” said Craig Sanders, the search and rescue controller at Sector North Carolina. “The patient will be placed in the hyperbaric chamber.”
