PORTLAND, Maine—The Coast Guard has flown an injured crewmember from a sailboat 20 miles off the Maine coast to a hospital for treatment of a possible spinal injury.
According to the Coast Guard, sailors aboard the 23-foot sailboat, Sheila, called for assistance Sunday morning from near Matinicus Island while on their way to Nova Scotia.
With assistance from a Coast Guard vessel crew, a Coast Guard helicopter hoisted the injured sailor out of the boat in 4- to 6-foot seas with winds gusting up to 20 miles per hour.
The patient was taken to Rockland, where paramedics took him to a hospital.
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