#Coastguard - Sligo’s Irish Coast Guard helicopter Rescue 118 is involved in an ongoing multi-agency search for a diver missing since yesterday afternoon (12 August) off the Donegal coast.
According to TheJournal.ie, the man was part of a group diving wrecks north of Fanad when he disappeared and his colleagues raised the alarm.
Searching resumed this morning (Sunday 13 August) in tandem with Lough Swilly RNLI’s all-weather lifeboat and a number of local vessels.
In other recent coastguard news, Rescue 118 was tasked on Thursday (11 August) to the rescue of a canoeist stranded in the water for four hours in Lough Conn, as The Irish Times reports.
The alarm was raised by two children shortly after they had gone out on the canoe with the man, and managed to swim back to shore after they ended up in the water.
After an exhaustive search of the lough in fading light, the man was found around 10pm and recovered with signs of mild hypothermia – though a coastguard member said his condition could have been worse if the incident occurred in colder conditions.
Thursday (10 August) also saw two callouts for the Irish Coast Guard’s Achill Island unit, the first of which was to a casualty who had fallen from a horse on Keel sandy banks.
Due to the suspected serious nature of the injuries, Rescue 118 was dispatched from its Sligo base to airlift the casualty to hospital.
Meanwhile, the Achill unit assisted paramedics in preparing the casualty for the airlift as well as preparing and securing a landing site for the helicopter.
The second callout was to assist the same National Ambulance Service crew when they were tasked to a suspected stroke.
Again the team assisted packaging the casualty and preparing and securing the GAA pitch in Achill Sound for the Irish Air Corps’ Medevac 112 HEMS helicopter.
Elsewhere, the Shannon-based helicopter Rescue 115 was tasked on Wednesday (9 August) for a medevac from Great Blasket Island.
The patient had to be winched on board the helicopter via a stretcher lift due to the rugged terrain that prevented a landing, before being flown to Tralee University Hospital for treatment.
And previously, Killaloe Coast Guard was tasked last Saturday afternoon (5 August) to assist a jet ski that had broken down on Lough Derg.
A safety vessel from UL Activity Centre which was on exercise in the area had taken the personal water craft in tow until the coastguard crew arrived. The jet ski was then taken back to Ballina slip where it was removed from the water.