A CO GALWAY mother believes that lightning which struck her Connemara home would have killed her daughter had she been in her bedroom when the incident happened.
Sabina Berry has called on Galway County Council to provide a proper fire service in Connemara after it took emergency services from Galway city almost an hour and a quarter to reach her home.
“They got here as quickly as they could and they did everything they could, but it just emphasises how those of us living in Connemara do not have an adequate fire service,” said Mrs Berry, whose dormer house on Gorumna Island in Lettermore was badly damaged after being struck by lightning on Thursday afternoon.
Ms Berry was in the house with her son Patrick (19), who has a broken leg he suffered while playing football. Her husband PJ was working and her daughter Sabina Kate (21) was in Galway city on FCA duty.
The eight-year-old house, located on top of a hill, was hit by lightning about 2.30pm on Thursday. “There was really bad thunder and lightning. I am generally not scared of it so I just carried on, but I heard this great big bang, crash, and the whole house shook.
“I ran down the stairs to check on my son, and ran back up to see where it had hit. I knew straight away that lightning had hit, but I couldn’t see where,” she recalled.
“I started in the end bedroom, which is my daughter’s bedroom, and as soon as I opened the door it was like a bomb had hit it. The corner of the wall, the top part of it, was gone. The Velux window had blown out. There was sharp glass everywhere, there was smoke.
“My first thought was, ‘Go and get some water from somewhere and put out the fire.’ I was wondering why the sunken lights in the hallway were still on, until one of the lights burst out and there were flames in the hallway.
“My son with his broken leg was trying to come up the stairs and I knew I needed to get him out. There were flames everywhere,” she said.
Ms Berry said she did not bear to think what the consequences might have been had her husband and daughter been at home.
“It would have been a totally different story if my daughter had been in her room. If she was in her room she would have been killed. Thank God she was away in Galway, in Renmore Barracks.
“When we got out we could see that the main chimney on my daughter’s side of the house had been the main thing to be hit. It knocked the chimney on to my car and banjaxed it.
“The fire spread throughout the house. You could just hear the crackling and then smelling it and then seeing the flames coming out. And you are just standing there and watching it, knowing that you are so helpless as the fire brigade are an hour and 15 minutes away in Galway city, knowing there is absolutely nothing you can do.
“The neighbours were fantastic, they were there within minutes.”
She said she was tempted to go in and rescue items. “But I know if I did then my neighbours would follow me, and if anything happened to them I would never forgive myself. We are all fine. If my daughter was in that room, we wouldn’t care about the house. We would now be grieving over her.”