Media Release 16 January 2013

Coastguard volunteers attend medivac in Tutukaka

At 0938 hours today, Coastguard Northern Region’s Communications and SAR Response Centre was alerted by St John’s Ambulance of a vessel just off the coast of Tutukaka that had a person on board who had suffered a suspected stroke.

St John’s received the initial call from the distressed vessel via cell phone and passed the alert on to Coastguard who tasked Tutukaka Rescue. Tutukaka Rescue managed to establish contact with the vessel on Channel 04, a local game fishing channel in Tutukaka, and arrived on scene within 10 minutes of leaving their base.

On arrival to the vessel, a first response was put on board to assess the situation and stabilise the patient. Tutukaka Rescue then escorted the vessel back to the Tutukaka Marina where they berthed the vessel and were met by St John’s Ambulance. The patient in distress was taken to hospital.

Coastguard takes this opportunity to remind people of the importance of carrying two forms of waterproof communication on board and familiarising themselves with Coastguard’s marine VHF channels before heading out on the water.

Duty Officer for Coastguard Northern Region, Peter Seymour-Nash, says “if we were contacted directly via marine VHF radio, our response time would have been a lot quicker and in critical circumstances such as this, time is often of the essence”.

For more information on Coastguard or our VHF marine radio operator courses, visit www.coastguard.org.nz.

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