Miami-Dade County

Person airlifted from large ship off Government Cut after suffering fall

A fire rescue boat initially responded but the conditions in the water made it difficult to get the person safely off the ship, so a fire rescue helicopter also responded

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Chopper 6 footage shows a person being rescued from a ship near Government Cut Tuesday morning. 

A person had to be airlifted from a ship that was off Government Cut Tuesday morning after suffering a fall, officials said.

Miami-Dade Fire Rescue officials said they received a call of a hazardous situation involving a vessel in distress around 9:15 a.m. after a person was injured in a fall.

A fire rescue boat initially responded but the conditions in the water made it difficult to get the person safely off the ship, so a fire rescue helicopter also responded.

"We saw that the ship was encountering high wind, high waves, which would have made it difficult for the fireboat to extricate the patient on a normal means through a ladder," Miami-Dade Fire Rescue's Christopher Kramer said. "The best possible option for that patient since he did have some type of compromising issue was to hoist the patient off the boat.

Video showed the person being hoisted onto the helicopter and rushed to Jackson Memorial Hospital's Ryder Trauma Center. His identity and exact condition were unknown.

"Pretty difficult situation, this is something that we train for continually throughout the year," Kramer said. "Hoisting off of boats are particularly hard because they are moving targets, sometimes they can move. In this situation this ship was moving and had it swaying about 200 feet in either direction which makes it difficult to keep over target to hoist the patient."

No other information was immediately known.

Check back with NBC6 for updates.

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