Medics Get to Ailing Sailor

For three days, the small crew of a Newport Beach sailboat had radioed for help after a 47-year-old man aboard suffered seizures and lost consciousness, but the signals were too weak to reach ships passing in the distance.

Then, at 4 a.m. Friday, a merchant ship, the European Highway, picked up the emergency signal. Thus began a daylong rescue mission that involved the Navy, Coast Guard and Air National Guard.

The 32-foot Kai Aka had been sailing from Honolulu to San Francisco with three people aboard, authorities said. About 650 miles southwest of San Diego, it began to issue mayday calls, but from a radio too weak to be heard.

Finally, the European Highway detected the distress signal and the cargo ship radioed the Coast Guard.

At 4 a.m., a Coast Guard C-130 airplane lifted off from Moffett Federal Airfield in Sunnyvale, carrying medics and a flight surgeon from the 129th Rescue Wing of the Air National Guard.

Within an hour and a half, the Coast Guard plane spotted the sailboat, and a team of three parachuted into the water. Once aboard the sailboat, the emergency team treated the man.

A flight surgeon in the plane said the patient should be taken to the mainland immediately, and the man was placed aboard the cargo ship.

By this time, the Coast Guard had contacted a group of three Navy transport ships -- the Tarawa, the Duluth and the Rushmore -- as they were returning from Iraq with thousands of U.S. Marines and sailors. The Rushmore was asked to retrieve the ailing man.

The Rushmore was still on its way to the merchant vessel Friday evening. Once it arrived, authorities said, the man would be taken to its medical ward.

If he was deemed to need more immediate medical attention, he would be flown by helicopter to a hospital on the mainland.

Meanwhile, the other two occupants of the sailboat, which was registered in Newport Beach, would be allowed to continue on to their destination.

The names of the three crew members weren’t released.