Search and rescue services, both statutory and voluntary, were kept busy on Sunday responding to a number of calls.
The Lough Derg RNLI lifeboat was tasked to assist three people on board a 30ft cruiser that was reported adrift in Scariff Bay.
Shortly before 4.00pm, the volunteer crew was requested by watch officers at the Irish Coast Guard’s marine rescue sub centre on Valentia Island in Kerry to make their way to the scene.
The lifeboat soon located the casualty vessel by the Scilly Islands in Scariff Bay, southeast of Mountshannon Harbour. All three people on board were unharmed. The lifeboat crew provided lifejackets to two of those on board and requested that the third person don their lifejacket. An RNLI volunteer was also transferred across to the casualty vessel. It was established that the engine had failed.
Given the location and the deteriorating weather conditions and poor forecast, the helm requested the crew to set up for an astern tow. The lifeboat crew opted to tow the casualty vessel to Mountshannon Harbour.
In the lee of Bushy Island at the entrance to Mountshannon Bay, lifeboat volunteers changed the tow from an astern tow to an alongside tow to facilitate navigating the channel into harbour. At 4.45pm the casualty vessel was safely tied alongside at Mountshannon Harbour.
Liam Maloney, Deputy Launching Authority at Lough Derg RNLI advises boat users to ‘carry sufficient lifejackets for all passengers and wear them, and also carry a means of communication so that you can call for assistance if you find yourself in difficulty on the lake’.
The Killaloe unit of the Irish Coast Guard was tasked to a similar incident on Saturday.
Meanwhile, a woman is recovering in hospital after she was injured in a fall at a popular Clare beach this afternoon.
The alarm was raised shortly before 2.00pm when emergency services received a report of an accident in Spanish Point. A multi-agency response was mounted involving the National Ambulance Service; Clare County Fire and Rescue Service and the Irish Coast Guard. Gardaà were also notified.
Fire and crews from Ennistymon and volunteers from the Doolin unit of the Coast Guard assisted ambulance paramedics with recovering the woman from the beach to the waiting ambulance. She was removed to University Hospital Limerick for treatment for what’s believed to be a lower-leg fracture.
Also on Sunday, the Shannon-based Irish Coast Guard helicopter carried out two medical evacuations from the Aran Islands.
Rescue 115 was tasked to Inis Mór shortly before 6.30am today and later, at around 11am, to Inis OÃrr. Both patients were flown to University Hospital Galway for treatment.
