Posted on: Tuesday, June 1, 2004

Thompson perseveres through the pain

By Jan TenBruggencate
Advertiser Science Writer

AT SEA, south of Gardner Pinnacles — Hokule'a captain Nainoa Thompson painfully walked the deck, stared out to sea and took it easy under Dr. Cherie Shehata's supervision yesterday — a day after physicians considered evacuating him by air from the middle of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.

The canoe sailed comfortably, with the wind blowing at right angles over its starboard rail, from Tern Island Sunday night and south of Gardner Pinnacles yesterday. It was expected to pass Maro Reef today and possibly reach Laysan Island tonight.

An unexpected swell Saturday threw Thompson's back into the blunt end of a ship's railing. Shehata said the injury could simply be a severe bruise, but could be a fractured rib.

Doctors said that even the remote possibility that a fracture could puncture a lung led them to veto an air flight, because changes in pressure could make his condition worse. His symptoms yesterday did not worsen, and Shehata said she now believes that, at worst, he has a hairline fracture. He will be X-rayed when the canoe reaches Midway, which has a medical office.

Thompson said his back is sore, and he has painfully tight muscles from his neck to his lower back. Shehata said that may be a normal reaction as his body tries to protect the damaged area.

Yesterday, there was a small celebration for the 28th birthday of crewmember Kanako Uchino, who was born on the day Hokule'a made its first landfall in French Polynesia on its first voyage in 1976. She got a banana pancake with a candle donated by the folks working at the Fish and Wildlife Service refuge at Tern Island.

Advertiser Science Writer Jan TenBruggencate is serving as a crewmember on Hokule'a. His dispatches are sent via satellite telephone.