Annals Of Medical Assistance–How To Save A Finger Mid-Atlantic: The Atlantic Rally For Cruisers (or ARC) is an annual pilgrimage in which some 150 yachts cruise/race transatlantic in company, from the Canaries to St. Lucia in the Caribbean. It’s pretty much a milk run (click here to watch a nicely done short movie about last years run), but there’s usually some drama somewhere along the way. And this year’s excitement comes courtesy of 55-year old Ron Parker, who got his finger crushed by a heavy freezer lid in the rolling swell (the price of icing up yet another cocktail..?). Anyhow, his crew patched him up as best they could, but he was still six days from St. Lucia and in danger of losing his finger. His skipper put out a call for assistance from other yachts, and the ARC website picks up the story:

“Later that afternoon, they were joined by the German Hallberg Rassy 53 Jasika IV who had a surgeon and a nurse on board.

Owing to the sea state, Dr Gerhard Trömer and his assistant Edger Willie, then swam across to Tallulah, complete with mobile sterile operating unit. They were then able to set the broken bone and stitch up the wound to Ron’s finger. Ron describes the encounter yesterday: “We met Marival around 14:00 to take on extra drugs and painkillers and then liaised with a German boat Jaksia with a surgeon and nurse onboard – both swam across to our yacht and then performed something that could have come straight from the TV show M.A.S.H!”

Swam across? Damn, I wish those guys had been around when I stuck my finger in the turbine of the wind generator on the way to Jost Van Dyke a few years ago. I hope Ron at least dared go back into the freezer to serve them a post-op Rum Punch…



“See what a nice job they did…?”

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