According to the Navy. the call for help to evacuate the 48-year-old patient from the Portuguese fishing boat ‘Paralelo’ was made on Saturday afternoon.
Reports claim the man was showing signs of “suspected congestive heart failure.”
Given the distance at which the boat was located – around 390 nautical miles northeast of Flores – a EH-101 Merlin helicopter carrying a medical team and a C-295M aircraft which backed up the helicopter’s mission were dispatched from Lajes Air Base on the Azores’ Terceira Island.
On a post on its website the Portuguese Navy said “The evacuation was carried out successfully at around 12.42am [Sunday, 2 August], and headed to Ponta Delgada Airport, where the patient was transferred in an ambulance sent by the Regional Civil Protection Service and the Azores fire-brigade, who referred [the patient] to Ponta Delgada’s Divino Espírito Santo Hospital’s emergency department.”