South Africa’s National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI) boarded a Korean fishing vessel at 3am on Thursday to treat the ship’s chef, who had accidentally stabbed himself in the stomach in heavy seas.
The NSRI’s station commander at Port Elizabeth, Ian Gray, said the station was placed on alert on Tuesday, ”following a request for assistance from the ship’s agents of the 47m Korean fishing vessel Oryong 353, reporting an abdominal evisceration injury to their 39-year-old Chinese chef on board the vessel after he had accidentally stabbed himself in the abdomen while slicing food”.
The Oryong was fishing in rough seas more than 500 nautical miles (926km) off-shore of the Port Elizabeth coast at the time of the accident.
”It appears that the vessel rolled in heavy seas while the chef was slicing food, causing a knife to lacerate his abdomen. A provincial metro doctor gave advice to the crew to treat the injury while the vessel made her way to the nearest port, Port Elizabeth.”
On Wednesday night, the NSRI launched a deep-sea rescue craft, with a Netcare 911 paramedic aboard, to rendezvous with the vessel 60 nautical miles (111km) south-east of Port Elizabeth.
The paramedic and the NSRI man were transferred aboard the Oryong and the patient was stabilised.
”In the 4m to 6m swells it was decided to keep him on board his own vessel and treat him on board en route to Port Elizabeth rather than attempt to transfer him on to our rescue craft,” Gray said.
The patient was responding well to treatment. The craft were expected to reach Port Elizabeth on Thursday morning. — Sapa