The Helimer had to evacuate eight occupants of an inflatable boat that capsized in the early hours of this Friday about 10 kilometers from Lanzarote, including a child who is in critical condition and a pregnant woman.
According to sources from Salvamento, 112 and the Red Cross, it is a six-year-old child who went into cardiac arrest and was able to be resuscitated. In addition, the minor presented "burns and dehydration" at the time of rescue, while the pregnant woman suffered symptoms of hypothermia, says the Security and Emergency Consortium. Initially, the minor was evacuated together with the pregnant woman to the Doctor José Molina Orosa Hospital in Arrecife and throughout this morning, they are going to transfer the child urgently to Gran Canaria.
Everything happened around 00.30 hours, after a merchant ship that had been sent to help an inflatable boat 115 kilometers from Arrecife, the Maersk Roubaix container ship, reported that there were people in the water.
The Helimer 206 helicopter arrived in time to rescue them and evacuated seven adults - including the pregnant woman - and the child who was in the worst condition to Lanzarote. The rest of the occupants of that inflatable boat were picked up by Guardamar Polimnia, which arrived in port at around 7:00 in the morning with 218 people from five different rescues
In total, Maritime Rescue assisted 302 people in eight pateras on a frantic night of rescues in Lanzarote.
The Guardamar Polimnia rescued five boats and the Salvamar Al Nair another two, with this provisional count of occupants: 34, 25, 44, 57, 60, 51 and 38 people. All of them are in the Arrecife Commercial Dock, receiving the first health care
