The Operations Team were approached by a commercial partner regarding a seafarer on-board a vessel who suffered a leg trauma with skin removed from the shin following an accident.

This was a particularly interesting case to begin with due to the location of the ship and the obvious logistical issues that come with remote and unique rescue missions. The Team attempted to get a heli-evac as the immediate transport solution but due to the location there were limited options available and we were unable to find an available aircraft. Instead, the ship was diverted from the mid-Atlantic to Dakar, Senegal.

After admission to the Senegalese hospital, multiple Medical Report (MR) reviews were carried out by our team in order to decide what the best course of action was for getting the seafarer home safely from Senegal.

The Team initially looked into commercial options but due to the difficulty of the route (the patient required leg elevation but internal European business class does not offer this option), we decided to use an air taxi to transport the patient. The patient was flown from Dakar to the Belgian capital, Brussels, where we had then organised an internal transfer through Brussels airport in order for the patient to avoid going landside and not have to adhere to Belgian quarantine rules which would have hindered the repat entirely.

The first flight departed late out of Dakar, due to external factors, by 2 hours (around 02:15am). Upon the first delay on the flight, the staff member immediately contacted the air taxi company to delay the flight to not allow unwanted delay costs to escalate. As soon as the aircraft departed Senegal, the staff member liaised with the air taxi company to implement a new schedule based on the aircraft arrival time. The patient was transferred in super-fast time and was on the air taxi earlier than expected which made up for the time that was previously lost. CLCA then immediately contacted the ground ambulance team to ensure they arrived early to meet the early arrival of the aircraft.

The patient was taken to a local clinic, near to where the patient lives in Poland, which was identified by CLCA as the most appropriate and is continuing to recover safely at his home address.

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