The six survivors of a boat lost at sea off Papua New Guinea were flown to the island of Bougainville Wednesday after being treated by personnel aboard the San Diego-based hospital ship USNS Mercy, the Navy reported.
The patients, including a woman and her 18-month-old child, swam to a small land mass near Carteret Island following Saturday’s boating incident. They were picked up by one of Mercy’s helicopters and brought back to the ship for treatment.
Personnel from the Mercy escorted the group to meet with the local disaster coordinator and reunite them with their families, according to the Navy.
The Mercy left San Diego for Pacific Partnership last month. The vessel has or will stop at Fiji, Kiribati, Micronesia, the Philippines, the Solomon Islands and Vietnam during the four-month mission, the Navy said.
Pacific Partnership was started in 2006, two years after the devastating tsunami that swamped the coastline of several Indian Ocean nations. Part of the mission is to help countries with disaster preparedness.
—City News Service