Coast Guard after running a lifesaving mission during a sea storm.

Officials at the Rescue Coordination Centre in St. George's, the home of Harbour Radio, provided a vital communications link when a ship's captain suffered a life-threatening stroke on Easter Saturday.

The 48-year-old was treated at the King Edward VII Memorial Hospital for two nights before being transferred to Johns Hopkins in Baltimore.

Rescue team earns kudos Now Vice Admiral Roger T. Rufe, of the US Coast Guard, has praised Bermuda's RCC team in a special statement delivered on Tuesday.

The Harbour Radio experts arranged for two Hercules C-130 planes and a C-60 helicopter to land in Bermuda as part of the rescue mission.

The first plane braved thunderstorms to fly straight to the Captain's merchant ship, the Doric Shield , 195 miles southeast of Bermuda.

But it refuelled in Bermuda en-route back to the US, after dropping para-jumpers onto the ship.

The helicopter airlifted the Captain from the ship to Bermuda. And the second Hercules landed later in the weekend, to take him on to a specialist unit at Johns Hopkins Hospital.