One mother is breaking her silence after her 12-year-old son was rescued from a cruise ship by the US Air Force. The Massachusetts woman spoke exclusively to ABC News following her son being part of a high-stakes cruise ship rescue, hundreds of miles off shore.
Angela Bridges and her family, including her son Aiden, were on the Carnival Venezia cruise ship headed to New York City from the Caribbean. Aiden fell seriously ill, which raised concern for the medical team on board. After an X-ray was performed, things took a swift turn.
"It looks as though he has a perforation in his bowel — the next thing that we need to do immediately is get him off the ship," Angela recalled the medical team telling her. The 920th Rescue Wing of the Air Force flew to the ship to safely extract Aiden and transport him to the nearest medical center.
"We were standing there watching the whole time, and I, just, you know, screaming and crying over the helicopter blades," the mother shared. "It was very scary." Her son is now recovering at a North Carolina hospital.
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"I feel so much gratitude, gratefulness toward all the people who have been integral to my son's recovery," she said. "It's not just the Coast Guard or the Air Force, or the doctors or the nurses. It's all of those people."
