Howth Coast Guard were today involved in three seperate incidents along with their normal Saturday exercise.

While out this morning on regular exercise, which involved the rescue and recovery of a man trapped in a gully below the nose of Howth, the CG unit received a call at 1300 from Dublin MRCC that a flare had been sighted and could they go and investigate the area West of Howth harbour. A team was despatched from the ‘rescue’ site and they searched the Claremont and Burrow beaches but on talking to people walking the beach they found that the flare had orginated from land. Visability was good and no boats were in the search area. The team was sadisfied that no boat was in trouble and reported back to MRCC and were stood down.

The team finished the exercise and returned to the station where they took part in the regular chore of gear maintenance.

At 1400 the team received a call to go to the assistance of divers at the public slip in Howth who had one of their group showing signs of decompression sickness. The team arrived on scene within one minute of receiving the call. A diver was on the ground receiving oxygen treatment complaining of pain. The diver was given first aid and the condition was reported back to Dublin MRCC. An ambulance was on the way and a request was made to the National Hyperbaric centre to send the diver for treatment. The ambulance arrived and the diver was removed to the centre.

UPDATE — Diver received treatment and has recovered. Further treatments will be given to insure total recovery.

Just as the ambulance was pulling away a call was made from MRCC that a report was in from a member of the public that a boat was in trouble near the Lion’s head area of Howth which is on the South side of the head. Howth ILB was tasked and the Howth CG team was requested to go to the area and assist if required. While just arriving on scene another call was received that the boat was underway towards Howth Harbour. Howth ILB met them on route and escorted them to the harbour.

Altogether a busy day for the volunteers at Howth

Incident 43/07, 44/07, 45/07

Posted by admin on Saturday, October 13th, 2007 at 4:42 pm.