Tributes have been paid to the quick thinking of a Galway Bay Sailing Club instruction team for their rescue of a man from a car in the water at the weekend.
As Afloat reported previously, a senior instructor at GBSC worked with a 15-year old powerboat driver to pull the man from a vehicle.
The incident occurred at the club at Rinville pier near Oranmore on Saturday afternoon.
As The Times Ireland edition reports, the pair had been among a team tutoring local sea scouts on the water, and had been bringing two groups of the scouts ashore when the incident occurred.
“Callie and I were on the slip and showing the scouts some sailing knots, when we heard something smash through the railings and a car flew into the air and hit the water,” powerboat driver Cormac Conneely said.
“Callie immediately jumped into the rigid inflatable boat (rib) with me, shouted to the group leader to call 999, and I called to the rest of the team to get the scouts inside the club,” he said.
“The car was still floating and Callie got her sailing knife and jammed it into the driver’s window to stop it from closing,” he said.
“She then cut the driver’s safety belt, and we pulled him out through the car window and into the rib,”Conneely continued.
Fortunately, a separate first aid course was being run in the sailing club at the time.
A paramedic instructing on the course treated the man until the Galway fire and ambulance service and Galway RNLI arrived on scene.
The Shannon-based Rescue 115 helicopter had also been alerted after the emergency call.
The senior instructor threw her grapnel anchor and chain in the front window of the car to secure it.
With the assistance of a local Galway hooker sailor Sean Furey, who was on the water in a currach, they then towed the car ashore.
The 15-year old, who is a pupil at Coláiste Iognaid or “the Jez” in Galway, learned to sail with Robert McInerney on Inishbofin, and undertook a number of sailing and powerboat training courses.
Conneely’s dream is to join the Naval Service on leaving school, and to volunteer for the RNLI Galway lifeboat crew when he is old enough.
He emphasised that fellow GBSC instructors and assistants onshore, including Tom Ryan, Ben Schumaker, Ella Lyons, Veronica O’Dowd and Mattie Kennedy, were vital in dealing with the rescue effort.
His mother Teresita Nugent said she was very proud of her son, who had a long-held passion for the water.
Gardaí and fire brigade staff praised efforts of the instructors, as did experienced Galway sailor Pierce Purcell, who has had many years of involved with the Irish Sailing Association.
“ Having been involved with Irish sailing for some 50 years, I am very conscious of the contribution that it makes throughout the island of Ireland - not only with sailing clubs and training centres but scouting and disadvantaged groups,”Purcell said.
Read The Times here
