HOUSTON – The Coast Guard conducted a long distance medevac of an 80-year-old woman from a cruise ship approximately 100 miles south east of Galveston, Texas, late Sunday night.
A watchstander at Coast Guard Sector Houston/Galveston received a call at 10:42 p.m., Sunday from an agent for the cruise ship Rhapsody of the Seas, reporting that an elderly woman had injured her hip and needed to be medevaced. Coast Guard Air Station Houston diverted an HH-65C rescue helicopter from another case to conduct the medevac. The cruise ship turned around and started heading towards Galveston to make the Coast Guard’s flight shorter.
An HU-25 Falcon jet crew from Coast Guard Sector Corpus Christi, Texas, was launched to assist due to the extreme distance involved. The rescue helicopter crew located the cruise ship and hoisted the elderly woman at about 2 a.m. today. The woman was safely transferred to the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston at about 3:30 a.m.
