Guest Post from CDR Martha LaGuardia-Kotite, Press Secretary for the Commandant:
Men and women from the U.S. Coast Guard coordinated with the media, partner agencies and the urban search and rescue team in Port-au-Prince, Haiti who pulled a 69-year old woman from under the rubble. She had survived after seven days underneath a collapsed building near the Presidential Palace. Her condition has reportedly improved from critical to stable. Here's the rest of the story of how the Coast Guard helicopter aircrew located the survivor and medically evacuated her to a hospital Tuesday evening:
After Anderson Cooper, of CNN's AC360 and his broadcast team reported the remarkable story of her survival, viewers questioned: How would she get the follow on medical care?
Officials for the Massachusetts based Center for the Rural Development of Milot who had learned of the rescue, contacted the Coast Guard asking for help. LCDR Mike Fisher, Executive Officer of the CGC Tahoma, got the email request from Mr. Tim Traynor who was in the Milot, Haiti hospital:
Mike,
Please let us know if you can make this miracle happen. We are standing by at Hopital Sacre Coeur waiting for this woman to be delivered. God speed!
Tim
LCDR Fisher and his crew went to work. Coordination of efforts to make the medical evacuation possible meant pulling in people who were able to communicate her location back from their own far away locations in Atlanta, New York, Massachusetts and the Miami based Coast Guard District 7 Command Center to the Coast Guard Cutter Tahoma just offshore Haiti. The cutter, with a Coast Guard MH-65 helicopter aircrew, could fly the night time rescue. The aircrew consisted of LCDR Bill Strickland, LTJG William Andrews, AMT2 Dustin Harger, AMT1 Jeremy Tuttle, AET3 Christopher Russell and AMT3 Eric Burns from Helicopter Interdiction Tactical Squadron Jacksonville, Florida.
How they located the woman amid the destroyed buildings was a navigational feat in and of itself. It took using all forms of technology, talent and devoted people to pull it off. "They literally guided us in to the Palace under Night Vision Goggles using flashlights and a truck with the cutter relaying email messages via Ch 21 from a bystander on the ground," said LCDR Bill Strickland, pilot and mission commander of the helicopter. "We got her and she's doing OK considering she was buried for seven days...I guess miracles happen."
"We used texting, Skype, telephones and I think one or two carrier pigeons," teased Tim Traynor who works at the Haitian hospital in Milot. "The woman was rescued because of the USCG's commitment to never let a life pass without a heroic attempt. The Haitian people will survive and grow into a nation that is refounded in the example of compassion set by the men (and women) of the Tahoma. I am moved by your commitment and it will steel me for the difficult days to come. Thank you and all those involved in this desperate but noble effort."
"The Coast Guard has been rescuing people for over 220 years. In Haiti we have to use new ways to do it with our all of our international and United States agency partners," said Captain James McPherson, USCG, who helped with the rescue coordination from Haiti. Click on CNN American Morning to see the interview.
