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The call came to Art Statham, Coast Guard Marine Communications Officer at Comox Marine Communications and Traffic Services: The 12 m F/V Agnes May, was fully engulfed in flames and losing electrical power.

The lone fisherman on board reported he was abandoning ship between McEwan Rock and Fox Islands, off the entrance to Seymour Inlet. There were no further communications from the vessel.

Art broadcast a mayday relay and the Cape Sutil lifeboat and crew from Port Hardy responded. Cape Sutil was nearly an hour away from the scene. Art knew he had to get help to the scene faster if the fisherman was to survive in the numbing, bone chilling cold of the sea.

In situations like this it is standard procedure to contact vessels in the area to see if they can assist. F/V Namu responded, but she was entering Port Hardy, nearly two and a half hours away.

"Vince Kehn, captain of Inlet Transporter called in," Art said. "He heard the mayday but wasn’t in a position to help. He did know that there was a lodge located in Treadwell Bay, Seymour Inlet, about 40 kilometres northeast of Port Hardy. He told me the lodge had a boat and that they routinely monitored VHF channel 6."

Art got through to Seymour Inlet Lodge and roused the co-owner, Chris Gehlen. Chris advised that he was on his way, and surprised Art by saying he would be accompanied by three search and rescue technicians.

"I thought Chris was talking about lodge staff who were trained in search and rescue," Art said. In fact, the three SAR technicians were from 411 Squadron in Winnipeg who just happened to be at the lodge on a training exercise.

The four set out and were on scene in about 20 minutes. They scanned the water and caught occasional glimpses of a flashing light. It turned out to be the emergency beacon on the fisherman’s survival suit. His survival suit was only partially done up, so his suit was full of water and he was having difficulty staying afloat.

"It took the four of us to lift him over the edge," Chris said. "He had at least 30 gallons of water in his suit.

The fisherman was hypothermic, of course, since he had been in the water about 40 minutes. He was unresponsive.

They took him back to Seymour Inlet Lodge and put him to bed with some hot packs to keep him warm until the medic aboard Cape Sutil arrived. Cape Sutil arrived at the location of the Agnes May as she burned to the waterline, and sped on to the lodge.

When they arrived at the lodge, Rescue Specialist Bill Dickey quickly assessed the fisherman, and found no radial pulse.

Bill began inhalation re-warming treatment (see article below) and added more hot packs. It took almost an hour and a half to get the fisherman’s body temperature back to normal. 

By then his clothes had been dried by lodge staff, and the fisherman said he felt fine and wanted to go back to Port Hardy.

So he did, aboard Cape Sutil. Coast Guard Officer Sid Jones radioed the position of the wreck to the Comox Centre so that they could issue a notice to shipping, warning mariners of the danger posed by the charred skeleton of the Agnes May.

To Art, there were several people who qualified as "heroes" that day. "I feel if it was not for Vince Kehn’s knowledge of the area, and the quick response by the Seymour Inlet Lodge and 411 Squadron, the master of the Agnes May would not be with us today."

You can always find a hero if you look for one. That’s how things are here on the West Coast of Canada.

Every day a real life drama gets played out; every day a hero comes to light.

Reducing the number of hypothermia-related deaths depends in part on providing the best treatment techniques, and inhalation therapy is among the most effective therapies available.

The therapy usually considered is to wrap a hypothermic victim in blankets. This provides insulation, which helps reduce further heat loss, but it has limited benefit in re-warming a severely hypothermic patient.

As rescue personnel and the medical community become more skilled at treating hypothermia, it’s clear that a critical part of hypothermia treatment is to stabilize the patient’s temperature from the inside out. In a hospital setting this might include peritoneal lavage and blood re-warming as well as inhalation re-warming.

Res-Q-Air is a portable electronic unit that allows rescuers in the field to deliver warm, moist oxygen into the lungs of hypothermia patients.

The Res-Q-Air is a simple design, and the success of the product is due partly to its simplicity. It is compact and relatively light weight, yet it has made the difference between life and death time and time again.

The Res-Q-Air will operate for up to two hours on one charge. It allows the hypothermic casualty to breath on their own, or if required allows rescuers to deliver positive pressure, humidified oxygen right where it is most needed, at a temperature of 43°C.

This treatment prevents further respiratory heat loss and helps to stabilize heart, lung and brain temperatures.

When a person is hypothermic, they must be treated with care or their condition may deteriorate dramatically. If a patient is severely hypothermic, they must be handled with great care.

Rough handling or too rapid an attempt at re-warming can return cold blood from the extremities to the core which causes a condition known as "re-warming shock." The blood returning from the extremities can also include metabolic waste products that cause fatal heart arrhythmia.

With hypothermic patients, Coast Guard rescuers apply external heat with thermo-pads, hot packs or heating pads, to the head, neck, trunk and groin along with inhalation therapy.

In general, awareness of hypothermia is growing, thanks in part to the pioneering work done some 20 years ago by the University of Victoria.

The research conducted then is still a major influence in the field of hypothermia.

 A group at the University developed survival behaviors such as the HELP and HUDDLE positions, hypothermia prevention clothing such as the UVic Thermo-Float jacket, and inhalation treatment technology originally named heat-treat, and now marketed as Res-Q-Air.

Proper training, equipment and preparation can greatly increase survival times and survival chances in the event of an unexpected cold water immersion.

Rescuers expect people who are rescued to live, provided they are administered appropriate treatment and handled carefully.

Volume 6 - Issue 1

SHORELINES

SPRING 2001