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An 88-year-old woman is recovering in hospital after being evacuated by the RNLI Baltimore Lifeboat from an island off the west Cork coast after she suffered a fall at her home.
The woman, who lives alone at her home on Heir Island in Roaringwater Bay, fell at her house on December 28th and was found by her nephew and assisted into bed to rest and recuperate.
But the woman suffered a second fall on December 29th and the family requested the assistance of the Coastguard who tasked RNLI Baltimore to bring her to the mainland for transfer to hospital.
The RNLI All Weather Boat, the Alan Massey under Cox Kieran Cotter made its way from Baltimore to Heir Island where the volunteer crew administered casualty care to the elderly woman on arrival.
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She was then taken aboard the Alan Massey and brought back to Baltimore Pier where paramedics from the HSE brought her to hospital where she was medically assessed and treated.
According to the RNLI, the operation was completed successfully in challenging conditions with a north westerly wind blowing Force 6-7 leading to a one metre swell in the sea during the transfer.
The RNLI Baltimore Lifeboat had just returned to Baltimore when it was tasked to go to the assistance of three bodyboarders who had got into difficulty at Barleycove near the Mizen Head.
The wind had eased considerably since the first call out, with a south-westerly wind blowing Force 3-4 but there was a rough sea with the Alan Massey encountering 3-4 metres swells en-route
The Baltimore boat was some four miles west of West Calf Island when the Irish Coast Guard asked them to step down after they had learned that the bodyboarders had it safely ashore at Barleycove.
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