Glasgow And Ships Of The Clyde

News Event

Monday, January 5, 1959 @ 0030
DATE is correct but ACTUAL TIME is not known - any TIME SHOWN is our estimate for guidance only 		INGA (1958-1976 General cargo coaster 105 metres long of AB Transmarine, Helsingborg, Sweden) Own Page

Stornoway Lifeboat takes an ill five-month old baby from Swedish ship INGA to Hospital in Stornoway
Ship's location10 miles off Tiumpan Head, Isle of Lewis, Western Isles of ScotlandPort of RegistryHelsingborg, Sweden
Net Tonnage1,075
Gross Tonnage2,411
Deadweght Tonnage3,750

Contributed by Fred of Formby (Merseyside, England) 

   A five-month old Swedish baby boy who is seriously ill is being treated at Lewis Hospital in Stornoway, Isle of Lewis in the Western Isles of Scotland after being brought ashore by the Stornoway Lifeboat from a Swedish ship.   The child’s mother, Mrs. Johansen of Kalmar, Sweden, was also taken ashore and is staying in a private room in the Hospital to be near her baby.

   The ship, the general cargo vessel INGA, on which Mrs. Johansen’s husband is chief officer, and owned by Rederi AB Transmarin of Helsingborg, Sweden, was on passage from Preston to Narvik and in the Minch, about 10 miles from Tiumpan Head on the Eye Peninsula, Lewis, when the baby became ill.

   INGA contacted Stornoway Coastguard and reported that the baby was ill and had a temperature of 103 and requested that the baby be removed from the ship to Hospital.   The Coastguard tasked the Stornoway Lifeboat to attend and the Lifeboat, with a local Doctor on board launched about 11.20pm on Sunday and took the mother, her young daughter and the baby from the ship to Stornoway.

    Mrs. Johansen and her daughter are being accommodated in a room next door to the Hospital Operating Theatre.   Baby is reported to be very sick but improving.

   A local Church Minister who can speak Swedish has been acting as interpreter and the townspeople of Stornoway, hearing that Mrs. Johansen and her children had to leave the ship to the Lifeboat, in the middle of the night and in the midst of a severe winter gale and heavy seas, with only the clothes they were wearing, have brought gifts of money, clothing, toiletries, toys and food to support the family.

   The Swedish Consulate in London are making arrangements for Mrs. Johansen and her children to be flown back to Sweden as soon as baby is fit to travel.

   Mr. Johansen on the ship was told by radio of the baby’s improvement and of care and arrangements of his family.