“The reason that I’m here today is because of these lads,” says Brian Carr.
Carr was rescued on August 15th from the water at Tramore beach near Ardara in Co Donegal by Maitiú Clerkin (19), Maitiú’s uncle Joe Herron (who could not be present at the ceremony), Turlagh McDaid (19) and Dualta Bracken (19), who received the Just in Time Award at Water Safety Ireland’s national awards ceremony.
They were four out of 73 people honoured for preventing water tragedies at the ceremony that took place at University College Dublin on Tuesday.
Carr, a councillor from Glenties, had been enjoying a day at the beach with his wife Marie, son Ben (9) and niece Amelia (10). He recalls the children were playing in the water up to their knees with bodyboards.
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Suddenly, the waves picked up and swept the children out to sea. Carr ran into the water until it was up to his neck and started swimming, but after some time he ran out of energy and got into difficulty.
Friends Clerkin, Bracken and McDaid, who are from Ardara, said they would often go surfing at Tramore beach. They heard Marie screaming and shouting.
Clerkin, who studies sports management and coaching at Technological University Dublin, went to help the children while Bracken, a first-year physiotherapy student at Trinity College Dublin and McDaid, a second-year architecture student at Ulster University, went to Carr.
“We had the surfboards – having the surfboards is a deciding factor, really. We were more confident and more calm,” said Clerkin.
“It’s the stuff you read on the news: you don’t expect it to happen when you go to a beach,” said McDaid.
“We are here today because of their quick thinking and their bravery. It was the right people at the right time at the right place,” added Carr, who nominated them for the award.
James Murphy (21) and Jack Anthony (22) from Cork also received the Just in Time Award for saving Yvonne O’Donoghue, who nominated them, from drowning in May.
On her 53rd birthday, May 1st, O’Donoghue, from Inniscarra, went swimming at Garretstown beach.
“I wouldn’t be a big swimmer. I just love going into the water, it’s refreshing and clears the cobwebs,” said O’Donoghue, who works as a nurse at Mercy University Hospital.
After getting into difficulty, the first thought that came to her head was that she would never see anybody again and she thought she was going to die.
Anthony, who works at Merck in Carrigtwohill, was paddling on his surfboard and went to O’Donoghue.
The mother of five remembers the relief of having someone with her. “We might have drowned together, but just having someone else there with me in the water ... was fantastic.”
Anthony, from Frankfield in Cork, said the rescue was “meant to be”.
“I wouldn’t class myself as a surfer. The board had cobwebs on it before that day, it hadn’t been taken out in years. My girlfriend was like, ‘Oh, you’re all talk. You should bring it down’ and I did and it came in handy.”
Once Anthony got O’Donoghue on to the surfboard, he started chatting to her in attempt to calm her. They talked about what they were going to do once they got to land as that was “always the end goal”.
Murphy, from Kinsale, a final-year finance student at University College Cork, was on the beach that day with his mother.
He could hear people shouting and ran to get a ring buoy. He had completed the Irish Water Safety courses, so he “had a good idea of what to do”.
“In the time I had gone up to get the ring buoy and come back down, I’d say they’d gone out another 10 or 20 metres. I tried to throw the ring buoy, but it was too far, so I said I’d swim in with it.”
Once he got out to Anthony and O’Donoghue, he held one end of the buoy and O’Donoghue held the other. He and Anthony were able to swim back and get to shore.
Teenagers, off-duty paramedics, swimmers, surfers and bystanders were among the recipients of different awards at the ceremony.
More than 70 Water Safety Ireland volunteers also received long-service awards for teaching swimming, water rescue and survival skills.
Sylvia Thompson from The Irish Times received the national press award for her work in highlighting the dangers of swimming and rip currents and the importance of informed and responsible behaviour around water.
