Coast Guard crews airlifted three mariners with unusual injuries near Cold Bay last night.

Petty Officer Shawn Eggert says a distress call came in from the fishing vessel Pavlof around 11 p.m. A 50-year-old man had gotten sick aboard the crab boat.

"He was reported to have a staph infection and his vital signs were decreasing," Eggert says.

An MH-65 Dolphin helicopter attached to the patrol cutter Munro picked up the sick man about 50 miles outside Cold Bay. Eggert says they took him to Cold Bay’s clinic, and then transferred him to a LifeMed flight bound for Anchorage.

Around the same time, another Coast Guard helicopter crew airlifted two burn victims off a bulk cargo carrier.

Eggert says two crew members on the Astoria Bay were badly burned on Tuesday, while they were fixing the ship’s boiler. The Astoria Bay was traveling to China when the men got hurt. The ship consulted with the Coast Guard’s duty flight surgeon, though, and diverted to Unalaska for medical help.

But Eggert says the injured men couldn't make it that far.

"There were at least third degree burns," Eggert says. "It was bad enough to warrant flying them to the Cold Bay clinic, where the Guardian Life Flight [helicopter] could pick them up to take them to the Seattle Burn Center."

Eggert says burns are serious, though they don’t happen as often as other accidents at sea.

"Your most common injuries usually involve slips, trips and falls, basically," Eggert says. "But burn injuries are one of the other dangers while working aboard a boat -- especially any time you’re working around the boilers or engine room."

The Astoria Bay is a 609-foot bulk carrier flagged out of Hong Kong.