Navy saves Briton trapped in Bahamas – thanks to call by husband 4,000 miles away
A BRITISH man saved his wife’s life from more than 4,000 miles away by guiding rescuers to where she lay trapped in the Bahamas.
The elderly woman, who had been buried under rubble for up to four days after Hurricane Dorian tore through the islands last Sunday, was found only after her husband phoned the crew of a British ship and directed them to her.
As a Bahamian government minister said ‘thousands’ of people were still missing after the category 5 storm, the dramatic rescue saw the team on board RFA Mounts Bay – an auxiliary ship staffed by civilians and members of the Royal Navy – use a Google Maps reference sent by the husband.
The team flew to the co-ordinates and found the woman trapped in the home where she had been staying. She was briefly treated aboard Mounts Bay, where she was reportedly in a ‘poor and deteriorating condition’, before being flown to hospital.
The woman’s identity has not been made public. Her panicked husband, believed to be based in Chichester, West Sussex, made the call on Wednesday, and a team was immediately dispatched on a Royal Navy Wildcat helicopter.
Details of the extraordinary rescue operation were revealed by Captain Rob Anders, whose team also saved an American woman and her three children, including a seven-week-old baby suffering from sepsis.
Captain Anders said: ‘It was a good day for the ship, the ship made a massive difference.’
He added: ‘Bizarrely enough, the partner of the individual managed to ring the radio room. He rang and asked to speak to someone. He said he had not heard from his wife for close to five days. He had heard that she was under rubble.
‘He gave us a position from Google Maps. We converted the position he gave us into latitude and longitude. We launched the helicopter and we found her.’
The dramatic rescue happened on the island of Great Abaco, one of the worst hit by the storm, where the Mounts Bay crew have been working around the clock to deliver supplies such as shelter kits, hygiene kits and water.
Captain Anders described a scene of ‘great tragedy’ on the island. A large shanty town, home to many on the Abaco islands and known as The Mudd, ‘does not exist any more’.
It came as the Bahamian health minister warned the final death toll, which currently stands at 30, would be ‘staggering’. Dr Duane Sands said hundreds if not thousands were still missing. ‘The public needs to prepare for unimaginable information about the death toll and the human suffering.’
He called it the Bahamas’ ‘Katrina moment’, referencing the 2005 hurricane which killed 1,833 people in the US states. Dorian has lost speed since moving to the US coast, where it has caused flooding and widespread power outages.