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New York Times - Ships and Shipping

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Monday 21 September 2015

HMAS Melbourne aids critically-ill merchant mariner

Published on MAJ Cameron Jamieson (author), ABIS Bonny Gassner (photographer)
Location(s): Arabian Sea, Middle East Region
Topic(s): HMAS Melbourne (III) (FFG 05)
HMAS Melbourne's Medical Officer, Lieutenant Tenille Chapman waits in the seaboat while the Boarding Team embarks. They are heading to provide aid to a critically ill mariner on board the merchant vessel City of Beijing. (photo: ABIS Bonny Gassner)
HMAS Melbourne's Medical Officer, Lieutenant Tenille Chapman waits in the seaboat while the Boarding Team embarks. They are heading to provide aid to a critically ill mariner on board the merchant vessel City of Beijing.
HMAS Melbourne, deployed to Operation MANITOU in the Middle East region, has come to the aid of a critically-ill merchant seaman in the southern Arabian Sea.

Melbourne responded to a Safety of Life at Sea call from the Merchant Vessel, City of Beijing, which requested life-saving aid.

The Australian ship rendezvoused with City of Beijing at first light on 20 September, then the Royal Australian Navy frigate dispatched her Medical Officer and several of her ship’s company by boat to embark the merchant ship and assess the patient.

Lieutenant Tenille Chapman, Melbourne’s Medical Officer, said she was taken to attend to a mariner who was in need of urgent medical assistance.
 
 
HMAS Melbourne's Boarding Team including the Medical Officer return from providing emergency medical assistance to a critically ill mariner on board the  merchant vessel City of Beijing (background). 
 
HMAS Melbourne's Boarding Team including the Medical Officer return from providing emergency medical assistance to a critically ill mariner on board the merchant vessel City of Beijing (background).
 
 “His condition was very serious, so I administered emergency treatment,” Lieutenant Chapman said.

Having stabilised the patient, Lieutenant Chapman was then required to assist with getting ongoing care.

“The next step was to get the patient to a land-based hospital as quickly as possible,” she said.

City of Beijing is now heading to Mumbai at best speed so the mariner can receive further medical attention, while Melbourne has returned to maritime security patrols with the multi-national Combined Maritime Forces.
 
 Melbourne is on her eighth deployment to the Middle East region and is the 61st rotation of a Royal Australian Navy vessel in the region since the first Gulf War in 1991.

Royal Australian Navy ships are undertaking maritime security operations under Operation MANITOU, the Australian name for the Australian Defence Force’s operational contribution.
 
Source: Royal Australian Navy.

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