Cowes RNLI lifeboat and Coastguard Rescue Helicopter 175 were this afternoon (Saturday) called out to a yacht carrying a 43-year-old man who had suffered a debilitating seizure.
The emergency occurred on the Solent, about 1-and-a-half miles off Osborne Bay. The yachtsman, 1 of a number aboard 40ft yacht on charter from Port Solent, Portsmouth, had collapsed after suffering a fit and was in a very weakened state in the cockpit.
The lifeboat helm, Mark Harker transferred Dr Will King and another crew member, Anne Simkins, to the yacht to assess the man’s condition. They were then joined by a paramedic who had been lowered from the helicopter, together with full medical kit.
Eventually it was decided the man, still in a collapsed state but conscious, should be taken by the yacht to Gunwharf Quays in Portsmouth, where he was transferred on a stretcher to an awaiting ambulance.
After escorting the yacht to Portsmouth, the now fully crewed lifeboat stopped briefly off Lee-on Solent for the paramedic to be winched back up into the helicopter.
The lifeboat, which had launched at 15:40, had been off station for just over 2 hours. It was the first for-real shout for 1 of the 4 crew, Mark Crook, who had been undergoing training on the lifeboat earlier in that day.
