A sick crew member from fishing boat QNa 91991 TS from Quang Nam Province’s Nui Thanh District was safely brought back to Da Nang for treatment yesterday morning.

Crew member Dinh Van Dan receiving initial first aid (Photo: baomoi.com)

At 5.45pm on 30 April, 50-year-old fisherman Dinh Van Dan was reported to be suffering from severe and persistent coughing spasms, vomiting blood, and sometimes losing consciousness.  At the time the vessel was fishing on the southeast side of the Hoang Sa (Paracel) archipelago, about 320 nautical miles off the Da Nang coast.

After receiving an SOS message from the boat’s captain, staff at the Zone II Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (Da Nang MRCC) rang the city’s Emergency Centre 115 to ask for first aid instructions.  In addition, they urged the boat’s captain to head back towards the mainland as quickly as possible to allow the man urgent treatment.

However, with the victim’s health worsening, at 11.40am on 1 May the General Director of the Viet Nam Maritime Search and Rescue Coordination Centre, Mr Nguyen Anh Vu, asked the Da Nang MRCC to send out its rescue ship SAR 412, carrying doctors from the city’s Emergency Centre 115, to help the sick crew member.

By 8.00pm the same day, SAR 412 arrived at the scene and the patient was transferred to the rescue ship for initial first aid before being transported back to Da Nang.