body,td,th { font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; }
And the Coast Guard's quick response team has been busy over the past couple of days. On Wednesday, they received a call about a US national who'd gotten the bends while diving. He's a 62-year-old man, but according to the Coast Guard, his case was minor.
The operations officer told us more about the Coast Guard's role in this rescue.
Lt. JG. Melissa Jones, Operations Officer, Belize Coast Guard
"When it comes to the incident that took place out at Blackbird Caye Resort, a guest that was suffering from the bends, we got a call from the resort that they needed our assistance and with that we assisted by activating our quick response team who then did a medical evacuation and with that new that did that medical evacuation crew, there was a medic on board that assisted and played a vital role in the stabilization of the patient from Black Bird Caye to San Pedro."
"When our medic did assess the individual it was a mild case of bends, it wasn't severe so all he had to do was maintain the stability of him as to the intake of his oxygen, monitoring that throughout the journey from Blackbird to San Pedro where he was then handed over to a paramedic from the Belize Chamber Project Limited."
"When it comes to the bends case, we don't have much of that incident, however, we do do several medical evacuations which are within our area of responsibility, our quick response team, we always have a medic on board to assist, whether it's from the northern area, the central area, or the southern area."
And the owner of the resort, Garen Simonyan, told us how, quote, "fantastic the response was from the Coast Guard and From Abner Bacab from the Chamber in San Pedro. Even when everything is done correctly you can have an onset of the bends. All teams managed and executed the emergency well and the guest has returned to the resort to enjoy the remainder of their stay in Belize." End quote.
