THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 4, 1996 TAG: 9608040101
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A10 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: STAFF REPORT
LENGTH: 33 lines
A medical team from the carrier Theodore Roosevelt choppered to a container ship 300 miles away Friday, plucking a bleeding sailor from the commercial vessel and rushing him back to the carrier for treatment.
Their work probably saved the man's life, a Navy spokesman said Saturday.
The Norfolk-based carrier was steaming off the coast of North Carolina when it received a distress call from the Sealand Hawaii, an American-flagged ship, that one of its crewmen was bleeding heavily from his esophagus, the spokesman said.
Capt. Ronald L. Christenson, the Roosevelt's commanding officer, ordered the carrier turned around and dispatched his senior medical officer, his battle group nurse and an air wing flight surgeon to the cargo ship.
The trio flew 90 minutes by helicopter to the Sealand Hawaii, where Lt. Jennifer Reed, the flight surgeon, rode a hoist from the H-60 Seahawk to the civilian ship's deck.
She found mariner Nelson Rodriguez in shock, half of his blood lost.
Loaded onto a litter and hoisted into the hovering chopper, Rodriguez was rushed back to the Roosevelt, where sailors were already donating the blood he needed to survive.
Stabilized aboard the ship, Rodriguez was later flown to Oceana Naval Air Station, where he was transferred to Virginia Beach General Hospital.
Rodriguez was listed in stable condition in the hospital's intensive care unit Saturday evening.
KEYWORDS: U.S. NAVY by CNB