Lifesaving doctor, medicines and equipment airlifted to cruise ship
Passenger with intensive chest pains gets lifesaving treatment on mv BRAEMAR

Just before midnight last night Solent Coastguard received a radio call from the cruise ship BRAEMAR, which was 12 miles south of Shoreham on passage to Dover, reporting a male passenger who had been receiving extensive treatment for a chest pains for the previous 2 hours.

Solent Coastguard immediately tasked the Coastguard Search and Rescue Helicopter India Juliet and connected the ships medical team to the Accident and Emergency team at Queen Alexandra (QA) Hospital, Portsmouth, for expert advice. During the medical conference the patients condition worsened further; so it was decided to take a British Association for Immediate Care (BASICS) Doctor together with additional equipment and medicines to the cruise liner, rather than risk bringing the patient ashore in the helicopter.

Hillhead Coastguard team were tasked to QA Hospital to bring the equipment and medicines to the airfield while a suitably trained Doctor was located to undertake this offshore tasking. Rescue Helicopter India Juliet lifted off at 01:50am with the supplies and BASICS Doctor Hyde onboard, and winched them down to the cruise liner that was now off Beachy Head.

David Williams, Watch Manager at Solent Coastguard said,

We are relieved to hear that the patients condition has improved considerably and he is much more stable now with the additional equipment and medicines. He will be landed at Dover when the ship docks later this morning for treatment there. Normally we would bring the patient to the hospital but in this case we needed to move part of the hospital to the ship, which is a little unusual, and would not have been possible without the work of the BASICS immediate care system, together with the good relationship we enjoy with the other Health Care professionals involved.