Office of External Affairs
U.S. Coast Guard

Date: Sept. 24, 2008

Contact:  Lt. Armell Balmaceda
(361) 939-6227

Coast Guard medevacs crewmember

Port O'Connor, Texas - A Coast Guard helicopter crew medevaced a 44-year-old man from a deck barge 7 miles east of the Matagorda Jetties early this afternoon.

A watchstander at Coast Guard Sector Corpus Christi received a call at 11:54 a.m. from an EMS company in Lake Charles, La. reporting a crewmember on board the deck barge Arapaho suffering from chest pains.

Air Station Corpus Christi launched an HH-65C rescue helicopter crew to assist.  The rescue helicopter crew safely hoisted the man and an emergency medical technician off the barge and transported them to Citizen's Memorial Hospital in Victoria.

The man was last reported to be in stable condition.

This was the first live hoist for pilot, Lt. j.g. William Haywood.

Video of the medevac can be found at the following link:  http://cgvi.uscg.mil/media/main.php/v/video/9-24-08+ARAPAHO+Medevac.wmv.html

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