Last Friday, the US Coast Guard evacuated a wounded man from the Laura Maersk (4258 TEU) almost five hundred kilometres off the coast of Maryland. It concerned a crew member, who had suffered serious burns during an explosion in the engine room.
Because of the large distance to the coast, the navy’s destroyer USS Mahan was deployed to bring the rescue helicopter to the Laura Maersk.
No other damage
The wounded was taken to a hospital in Norfolk, Virginia. The container ship was on its way from Algeciras to Elizabeth, New Jersey, when a so-called turbocharger exploded. According to a Maersk spokesman, the ship and cargo were not damaged.
This article first appeared in Dutch on Nieuwsblad Transport, another publication of SWZ|Maritime’s publishing partner Promedia.
