Workday Pressures

The United States Coast Guard (USCG), on Saturday, 05 August 2023, medivaced a man who sustained barotrauma while diving in Gulf of Mexico waters approximately 87-nautical-miles south of Galveston, Texas.

Coast Guard District 8 watchstanders received a cell-phone call at 09:30 CDT from the master of a dive-boat who reported a 29-year-old man exhibiting symptoms consistent with decompression sickness. Watchstanders consulted the on-duty flight surgeon, who recommended evacuation of the individual to an appropriate medical facility.

Headquartered in New Orleans, Louisiana, the 8th Coast Guard District is responsible for U.S. Coast Guard operations spanning 26 states, including the Gulf of Mexico coastline from Florida to Mexico, the adjacent offshore waters and outer continental shelf, as well as the inland waterways of the Mississippi, Ohio, Missouri, Illinois, and Tennessee River systems.

Responding to the report of the imperiled diver, a MH-65 Dolphin helicopter crew assigned to Coast Guard Air Station Houston diverted from a training exercise and proceeded to the dive-boat’s coordinates. An already-airborne HC-144 crew assigned to Coast Guard Air Station Corpus Christi proceeded, likewise, to assist in the rescue effort.

The HC-144 Ocean Sentry is a medium-range, twin-engined turboprop aircraft utilized by the United States Coast Guard in the search-and-rescue and maritime patrol capacities. Built in Spain by Airbus Military, the HC-144 is a variant of Airbus’s CN-235 medium-range surveillance aircraft.

The USCG MH-65 crew arrived on scene at 11:20 CDT, hoisted the ailing man aboard the helicopter, and transported him to Memorial Hermann - Texas Medical Center in Houston. He was last reported to be in stable condition.

Created by Congress as the Revenue-Marine on 04 August 1790, the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) is the oldest continuously operating naval service of the United States. The Semper Paratus (Always Ready) motto to which the Coast Guard aspires speaks to the outfit’s ethos and the nature of its humanitarian and security missions.

Stated simply, the Coast Guard protects the United States' borders and defends her sovereignty by safeguarding sea lines of communication and commerce across 95,000-miles of U.S. coastline and the entirety of the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone. This critical work is carried out by 44,500 active-duty personnel, 7,000 reservists, and 8,577 full-time civilian employees.

The USCG’s fleet of roughly 250 coastal and ocean-going cutters, patrol ships, buoy tenders, tugs, and icebreakers; as well as nearly two-thousand small boats and specialized craft constitutes the world’s 12th largest naval force. The service’s aviation division comprises north of two-hundred helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft the likes of the AC-37A (Gulfstream V), HC-144A (Airbus CN-235), and Lockheed’s mighty HC-130 Hercules utility turboprop transport. To supplement the aforementioned and better support its homeland security and search & rescue operations, the Coast Guard is building an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) program around General Atomics’ MQ-9 Reaper platform.

In its humanitarian capacity, the U.S. Coast Guard saves tens-of-thousands of lives every year and provides emergency response and disaster management for all manner of man-made emergencies, meteorological exigencies, and outright natural disasters.

FMI: www.uscg.mil