A crewmember was seriously burned while fighting an engine room fire on a containership near California.
On Aug. 4, 2012, fire broke out on Jupiter about 30 nm off San Diego while it was en route from Long Beach to Mazatlán, Mexico. The crew extinguished it with the onboard firefighting equipment. While battling the fire, one crewman suffered third-degree burns on a large portion of his body. He was airlifted to shore by a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter.
At about 1300, after the fire was out, the crew requested medical assistance from the Coast Guard. No other crewmembers required treatment.
When the Coast Guard MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter arrived, a paramedic was lowered 130 feet to the deck to examine the injured crewman. The paramedic recommended evacuation for treatment.
The Coast Guard crew then hoisted the injured 55-year-old man off the vessel. By 1550 the helicopter landed at the San Diego Coast Guard station, where a waiting ambulance transported the crewman to the University of California San Diego Medical Center burn unit.
The 652-foot Jupiter, carrying 2,400 TEUs, continued on to Mazatlán. The German company MarTime operates Jupiter, a geared containership that carries a Liberian flag.
The incident will not undergo Coast Guard or other investigations. Because the vessel is foreign-flagged and was in international waters, it is outside the scope of the Coast Guard’s authority and jurisdiction for a marine casualty investigation, according to Petty Officer Henry Dunphy, a Coast Guard spokesman in San Diego.
“The Coast Guard’s involvement was limited to the medevac,” Dunphy said.
MarTime did not respond to requests for comment.
The ultimate fate of the fire victim was unavailable.
