Coming to the rescue in Canada

The network of lifesaving services around the world keep boaters safe. Here’s a story by Bruce Munro of when the Canadian Coast Guard came to his rescue:

During the summer of 2015, my wife and were cruising in British Columbia on our Sabre 402 Princess. While anchored in Deep Bay on Jedediah Island, a very remote but beautiful anchorage off the Strait of Georgia, I developed abdominal pain late that afternoon.

I suspected it was from a condition I’d had before, and it is potentially life threatening if not attended to. We thought I could last until the next morning when we could make the trip to the closest place for medical attention (Nanaimo), but by 1100 the pain became so intense that my wife decided to declare a medical emergency and called the Canadian Coast Guard on the VHF.

She told them about my condition and they patched us into their medical team who asked me a lot of medical questions about my condition. After that was done, they asked us to standby while they consulted with each other. About five minutes later they came back on the line and informed us that they were going to come out and get me. We were very relieved as I was in great discomfort by that time.

Around 0100, the Coast Guard arrived on a pitch black night. I was expecting some kind of fast RIB, but no, they arrived in about a 45 -foot steel cutter manned by five coastguardsmen and two paramedics. They were extremely professional and helped my wife and me aboard their cutter. They then examined the moorage for our boat (we were anchored at the bow and stern tied to the shore) as we had no idea when we would return.

We then took off on an hour plus high speed trip to their base on Vancouver Island about 15 miles north of Nanaimo where an ambulance was waiting for me. The ambulance then took us to a hospital in Nanaimo where my condition resolved itself after about 10 hours and I was released.

We got back to our boat and the next day I called the Coast Guard to thank them for such a wonderful job. I told them I was an American citizen, and that I hoped the U.S. Coast Guard would do as well as they did should a Canadian citizen be in a predicament similar to mine in U.S. waters. They appreciated my call very much.

When we got home weeks later, I had a bill from the ambulance company and another bill from the hospital, but no bill from the Coast Guard. The Canadian taxpayers paid the considerable expense for my rescue that night. I believe our Coast Guard has the same policy and so it should be. I will always be grateful to the Canadian Coast Guard for what they did for me that night.

Do you have a story in which the Coast Guard or another water-born rescue agency came to your need? Send to editor@sailingscuttlebutt.com.