A helicopter rescue in pitch darkness, hundreds of miles out in stormy seas, is not the way local doctor Michael Urdang expected to finish Valentine’s Day.

Just married, Dr Urdang had been grateful for a couple of days off and the chance to spend the weekend with his wife, Karen, who had flown to the island from New York.

However, a medical emergency aboard had arisen on an oil tanker 300 miles east of the island, where a 38-year-old crewman was suffering from what was believed to be appendicitis.

“It was like a scene out of a movie,” Dr Urdang recalled. “The American Coast Guard was phoned on Saturday. They had a guy in the middle of the Atlantic getting sicker over the course of the day.

“They decided to to send a helicopter from the East Coast, followed by a C-130 plane, with 15 people in total. The people on board can’t do anything medical, so they phoned ahead for a doctor.”

Dr Urdang’s experience with the London air ambulance, plus his residency at Los Angeles County with plenty of helicopter experience, made him the man for the job.

The aircraft arrived at midnight on Sunday, with Dr Urdang hurrying to King Edward VII Memorial Hospital for supplies ­— and then heading far out to sea in “pitch dark” with the pilots using night-vision goggles. The weekend winds had abated but there were “20ft swells; the waves were huge”, Dr Urdang said: “We came to a massive tanker out in the ocean, which kept going while we did the rescue.”

At about 3.15am one of the helicopter’s crew lowered 150ft by cable onto the Nordic Amy and the patient was winched aboard and flown back to the island. Dr Urdang said the sailor was fine after having surgery on Monday night.

Meanwhile, his wife had to return to New York from her short visit on Monday afternoon.

“They wouldn’t let me take her with me on the helicopter,” Dr Urdang said.