#RESCUE - A lifeguard at Galway's Leisureland has been praised for his part in the rescue of a canoeist who got into difficulty in the water off Salthill, as The Connacht Sentinel reports.
Ian Brennan raced to the water after a woman looking across from the Galway Bay Hotel spotted the man in trouble a few hundred yards from the shore and raised the alarm.
The Leisureland duty manager, a former competitive swimmer with experience in water safety, said he didn't think twice about the incident.
"I grabbed a ring buoy, ran across the road, stripped down to my boxers and swam to the person," he said.
Brennan managed to swim ashore with the canoeist as Galway's RNLI lifeboat was being dispatched to the scene.
He also commended the lifeboat crew "for the speed at which they launched" and for their quick treatment of the canoeist for hypothermia.
Despite the applause he received from onlookers once back on land, Brennan described his actions as "no big deal".
The Connacht Sentinel has more on the story HERE.
