Coast Guard crews airlift woman to hospital from cruise ship off NC coast

WILMINGTON, N.C. (WNCN) — The U.S. Coast Guard rescued an ill elderly woman from a cruise ship off the North Carolina coast Sunday evening, officials said Monday.

Crews in North Carolina were first alerted about the 85-year-old woman, who was suffering stroke-like symptoms on the ship 98 miles off Cape Lookout, according to a U.S. Coast Guard news release.

At the time she became ill, the woman was aboard the cruise ship Carnival Venezia which was headed to the Bahamas, the Coast Guard said.

Crews in North Carolina coordinated a response to airlift the woman to the mainland for treatment at a hospital.

A MH-65 Dolphin helicopter crew from a Coast Guard facility in Charleston, South Carolina, was sent to the scene.

The crew of the copter hoisted the woman from the cruise ship and flew her to Wilmington International Airport, where EMS then took her to New Hanover Regional Medical Center.

Video was released by the Coast Guard showing the woman being hoisted off the deck of the cruise ship and into the helicopter.

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