This article is from page 1 of the 2008-08-05 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 1 JPG
LAHINCH lifeboat co-ordinator Tomsie O’Sullivan has denied that his volunteers were hampered in their efforts to rescue drowning vic- tim, Fiona Ring at the Clare resort last Tuesday.
The 39-year-old mother, who was a native of Broadford, died after get-
ting into difficulty while surfing with her husband and nine-year old son. Mr O’Sullivan said he was aware of widespread rumours that some- one had left equipment blocking the boathouse doors and the slipway. ‘That is not the case. Our biggest problem was to keep onlookers away from the slipway and to keep the way clear of cars for the boat to get
through.”
He agreed however that three peo- ple were enlisted to help lift the se- curity barrier protecting equipment and materials being used in the con- struction of the lifeguard station.
“The barrier didn’t obstruct us but to make it safer for the Doolin boat, we moved the barrier by sliding it over a couple of feet,” he said.
He got the call-out from Valentia at 9.30pm but was first asked by them to go to the beach to establish if the emergency was genuine.
“Doolin rescue had already been alerted and were on stand-by to launch once we had established it was a genuine call,” he said.