Last night, October 8, 2019, the Coast Guard of New Zealand dispatched a helicopter to the Celebrity Solstice to medevac a crew member who needed to be hospitalized.

The Solstice had departed the Bay of Islands at about 5:30 in the afternoon. After two hours, the captain reportedly announced that he had reduced the speed of the ship to around 5 knotts while waiting for the helicopter to arrive. The helicopter landed on the ship’s heliport, and picked the crew member up. The helicopter departed the ship around 8:30 pm and flew the crew member to a hospital in Auckland, following which the Celebrity cruise ship sailed toward Sydney, Australia.

There is no public information whether the crew member was injured or had become ill.

The Celebrity Solstice has previously sailed from Honolulu (Oahu), Hawaii on September 23rd, Lahaina (Maui), Hawaii on September 24th, Papeete, Tahiti, French Polynesia on September 30th, Bora Bora, French Polynesia on October 1st and Auckland, New Zealand on October 7th. The last port of Bay of Islands, New Zealand was the last port before the medevac.

This was the third medevac from a cruise ship in a 24 hour period. A young man (passenger) was medevaced from the Carnival Valor which was sailing just south of New Orleans on Tuesday. The cruise guest had been seriously injured after falling around 15-16 feet. Also a crew member suffering from a heart ailment was medevaced from the Norwegian Joy yesterday afternoon off of the coast of Oregon.

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Photo credit: Celebrity Solstice – Aah-Yeah -CC BY 2.0, commons/wikimedia.