[chris]

USCGC Frederick Hatch (WPC 1143) medically evacuated a 31-year-old Vietnamese fisherman to Pohnpei on Nov. 20 after its boarding team learned of his injuries during a bilateral fisheries boarding with an FSM Marine Police officer aboard Ocean Galaxy, 195 nautical miles south of Pohnpei.

Ocean Galaxy is a 69.4-meter (227-foot) purse seiner flagged out of Nauru. The fisherman reportedly fell 12 feet earlier that day, sustaining a head and possible spinal injury. He was conscious and talking, but had lost feeling and motion in his right arm and both legs and showed severe concussion symptoms.

The Frederick Hatch crew consulted a duty flight surgeon through U.S. Coast Guard Forces Micronesia Joint Rescue Sub-Center, and a medevac was recommended. The boarding team, with an embarked Coast Guard hospital corpsman and linguist, stabilized the fisherman with a cervical collar and secured him to a miller board before transferring him by small boat to Frederick Hatch.

The crew converted a galley dining table into a sick bay to monitor him and administer oxygen. Frederick Hatch reached Pohnpei after about eight hours, arriving around midnight, and transferred him to waiting emergency medical services for transport to the local hospital. The hospital corpsman and linguist went with him to pass on medical details and help hospital staff communicate with him.

The initial boarding was for possible fishing in the FSM exclusive economic zone without a license. The vessel master produced an FSM-Nauru bilateral fisheries license, and said the vessel's primary target species was tuna.