Cork man dies swimming English Channel

A Cork man has died while attempting to swim the English channel. Páriac Casey, who was 45 and from Passage West, was within 1km of the French shore of Calais when he became ill. He was undertaking the swim to raise funds for St Vincent de Paul and Marymount Hospice. It is suspected that he suffered a heart attack and it was his wetsuit that kept him afloat after he got in to trouble. 

He was pulled aboard after his boat crew noticed he was lying on his back and although efforts were made to stabilise Mr Casey, they were unsuccessful in resuscitating him and he was pronounced dead before he could be airlifted to hospital.

Mr Casey's wife Riana Parsons was on the boat at the time of the incident which occurred at about 1am yesterday morning. Mr Casey had begun the 34km swim just after 9am on Saturday morning and he was less than 90 minutes from completing the task. It comes a week after fellow Cork open-water swimmer Steve Redmond became the first person in the world to complete the Oceans Seven swims. Mr Casey worked at Fota Island and his late father, Páraic Senior owned the Rob Roy pub in the city centre for a number of decades. A post-mortem is due to take place later today in France. 

So far over €2500 has been raised on the fundraising webpage which had been set up by Mr Casey. Donations can be made here. 

A statement from Saint Vincent de Paul expressed sorrow at the tragedy.

"The Society of St Vincent de Paul is shocked and saddened at the news of Paraic Casey's death while swimming the English channel. 

"We understand that the Society was one of the organisations that Mr Casey from Cork was seeking to raise funds for from his charity swim. 

We offer our sincere condolences to his family."