Sick Woman Airlifted Off Soviet Vessel

A Soviet woman complaining of abdominal pains was airlifted by the Coast Guard on Monday from a Soviet Union trawler 200 miles off the coast and taken to a La Jolla hospital.

Diane Yohe, a spokeswoman for Scripps Memorial Hospital, identified the woman as Svetlana Alexandrovna Prokudina, 26, of Vladivostok, a Soviet port on the Sea of Japan. Yohe said the woman was suffering a miscarriage when she arrived at Scripps, and doctors there terminated her pregnancy.

“She’s doing real well and feels real good,” Yohe said. “She is a little scared and wants to go back to her ship. She’s worried about how she’s going to get back.”

Prokudina had complained of cramps for four days when a doctor on the trawler decided to ask for medical assistance, Yohe said. Prokudina, who has a husband and 3-year-old child in Vladivostok, is a food worker on the trawler Gnevnyy and does not speak English. But Yohe said that Bob Chernon, assistant personnel manager at the hospital, is fluent in Russian and is translating for doctors.

Coast Guard spokesman Lt. Joe Riordan said that Prokudina arrived at the Coast Guard Air Station at Harbor Island at 9:19 a.m. and was transported to the hospital by ambulance.

“She was ambulatory and displayed no extreme signs of distress. Her vital signs were stable,” Riordan said. “She had the phrase ‘My name is Svetlana Prokudina,’ down pat, but she didn’t appear to speak English.”

Riordan said that officials at the Soviet Consulate in San Francisco had instructed her to contact them as soon as possible. Yohe said that hospital officials have not instituted special security measures for Prokudina and added that she has not been visited by U.S. government officials.

Riordan said that the Coast Guard station in San Francisco received the first message about the shipboard emergency Sunday morning. But at that time the ship was in the Pacific Ocean, 500 miles south of San Diego, and out of the range of the Coast Guard rescue helicopters. A Soviet doctor aboard the trawler had diagnosed the abdominal pains, and the vessel was instructed by the Coast Guard to steam toward the San Diego coast.

The Coast Guard took a civilian translator in the rescue helicopter to help the rescuers communicate with the Soviet boat crew. Riordan said the rescue mission was cleared with the State Department but explained that “in this case it was just a formality,” because clearance is routinely given in medical emergencies.

Early Monday, the Coast Guard dispatched a helicopter to airlift the woman when the ship was about 200 miles offshore. Riordan said the rescue was uneventful but far from routine.

Normally, in shipboard rescues the victim is lifted from the ship’s stern. But because of the trawler’s fishing gear, Monday’s rescue was done at the bow while it was rising and falling, making the airlift a little tricky, Riordan said.

The Coast Guard said that the seas were 15 feet high and wind was gusting at 25 m.p.h. during the rescue.