Awards for Leeside life-saving trio

Three brave Cork men were honoured at an awards ceremony this week for rescuing a man from drowning in the River Lee in March.

Fisheries officers Stephen Kiely, Sean Cremin and Tomás O’Riordan each received the Seiko Just in Time Rescue Award at the Water Safety Ireland’s National Annual Awards Ceremony in Dublin on Tuesday afternoon.

On 8 March 2019, officers Stephen Kiely and Sean Cremin were on patrol when they were informed that a man was in the river.

The officers rushed to the man’s location and together managed to bring the unconscious casualty onto the river bank. Officer Tom Riordan then instructed Officer Cremin on various steps of responsiveness from the casualty and informed him that they should commence CPR.

Both Sean and Stephen performed CPR on the individual for approximately ten minutes until he eventually started to respond with signs of life.

Emergency services arrived and took the casualty to hospital where he made a full recovery.

The award was presented by Michael Ring, Minister for Rural & Community Development, who was delighted to pay tribute to the heroes.

He said: “It is an honour to pay tribute to these deserving award recipients. Without their bravery, quick thinking and selflessness, the outcomes could have been very different.

“On average 124 people drown annually in Ireland and while one drowning is one too many, the figure would have been higher but for these courageous rescuers,” the minister added.

The three Cork rescuers join a list of award recipients who together saved a combined 17 people from drowning across the country during 11 separate near-drowning incidents.

Other award recipients will included 61 volunteers who were presented with Long-Service Volunteer Awards, recognising a combined total of 1,275 years of personal service teaching swimming, water rescue and survival skills in communities nationwide.