Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos was airlifted from a cruise ship by the Ecuadorean Navy after suffering a kidney stone attack in the Galapagos Islands on New Year’s Day.
“Galapagos: five stars. Kidney stones: zero stars,” Bezos said in an e-mail provided by Amazon.
Ecuador’s navy said Bezos was aboard a ship traveling between the islands of Floreana and Santa Cruz, both famed for their wildlife, when the attack struck in the mid-afternoon.
A navy helicopter met the ship at Santa Cruz and flew him about 32km to his private jet on the nearby island of Baltra.
From there, Bezos was flown to the US for “emergency surgery,” the navy said in a statement.
“He had to be attended to in the shortest possible time,” the statement said.
The Galapagos islands lie about 965km west off the Ecuadorean coast.
Juan Carlos Ibarra, a lieutenant with the navy’s air force, was the helicopter pilot who flew the airlift.
“They informed us when the ship was arriving in Academy Bay at Santa Cruz island,” Ibarra said by telephone.
“We landed our helicopter on a football pitch there ... they told us that a doctor had already gone in boat to treat him onboard the yacht... They stabilized him and took him to the United States. He was conscious, but he was on a drip,” Ibarra said.
The navy said in its statement that Ibarra, as well as the helicopter copilot and flight engineer, had received messages of thanks from relatives and associates of Bezos, whom it described as “such a prestigious, world famous businessman.”
Galapagos National Park draws many wealthy and famous visitors among the about 180,000 tourists who visit every year to gape at the archipelago’s rich, but fragile biodiversity.
Bezos, 49, is the 19th richest person in the world, according to Forbes magazine, with a fortune of US$25 billion.
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
HOLLYWOOD IN TURMOIL: Mandy Moore, Paris Hilton and Cary Elwes lost properties to the flames, while awards events planned for this week have been delayed Fires burning in and around Los Angeles have claimed the homes of numerous celebrities, including Billy Crystal, Mandy Moore and Paris Hilton, and led to sweeping disruptions of entertainment events, while at least five people have died. Three awards ceremonies planned for this weekend have been postponed. Next week’s Oscar nominations have been delayed, while tens of thousands of city residents had been displaced and were awaiting word on whether their homes survived the flames — some of them the city’s most famous denizens. More than 1,900 structures had been destroyed and the number was expected to increase. More than 130,000 people
A group of Uyghur men who were detained in Thailand more than one decade ago said that the Thai government is preparing to deport them to China, alarming activists and family members who say the men are at risk of abuse and torture if they are sent back. Forty-three Uyghur men held in Bangkok made a public appeal to halt what they called an imminent threat of deportation. “We could be imprisoned and we might even lose our lives,” the letter said. “We urgently appeal to all international organizations and countries concerned with human rights to intervene immediately to save us from
Some things might go without saying, but just in case... Belgium’s food agency issued a public health warning as the festive season wrapped up on Tuesday: Do not eat your Christmas tree. The unusual message came after the city of Ghent, an environmentalist stronghold in the country’s East Flanders region, raised eyebrows by posting tips for recycling the conifers on the dinner table. Pointing with enthusiasm to examples from Scandinavia, the town Web site suggested needles could be stripped, blanched and dried — for use in making flavored butter, for instance. Asked what they thought of the idea, the reply
RSS