“Just the facts, Ma’am” – Sgt. Joe Friday….
An update from the USS Bataan’s website:
USS BATAAN, At Sea – The amphibious assault ship USS Bataan (LHA-5) received two MEDEVAC helicopters at approximately 8:15 p.m. Jan. 19, with three injured Haitians receiving immediate medical care from the Bataan medical team.
U.S. Navy and Coast Guard search-and-rescue crews responded to two separate distress calls in the vicinity of Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
An MH-60S Knighthawk from Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron (HSC) 22 medically evacuated two patients with potentially life-threatening injuries just before a Coast Guard HH-65A Dolphin carrying a third patient arrived aboard Bataan.
FACT: This is 24 hours after arriving off of Port-au-Prince.
Meanwhile, the USNS COMFORT received their first patients while steaming enroute to Haiti according to Robert Little of The Baltimore Sun:
The Navy’s Baltimore-based hospital ship arrived close enough to Haiti to take aboard its first patients Tuesday night – providing urgent care to two severely injured quake victims transported from an aircraft carrier near Port-au-Prince.
Doctors were treating a 20-year-old man suffering from a spinal fracture and bleeding in the brain and a 6-year-old boy with a fractured pelvis.
The patients were brought aboard well before the ship reached its destination and hours after the crew had finished its latest round of training exercises.
I will let you decide.
