MEN AND WOMAN RESCUED IN BUSY WEEKEND FOR RNLI

Lifeboat crews called out to separate rescue operations over the weekend.

Lifeboat crews called out to separate rescue operations over the weekend.

RESCUE teams have had a busy weekend as the heat wave weather brought crowds to beaches and the waterways.

On Sunday, a volunteer RNLI crew helped an injured woman on Salt Island also in Strangford Lough.

The crew arrived at the island at 10.10 am to assess the situation before taking two paramedics to the island to assist the woman.

Her condition was deemed too serious to be rescued by lifeboat and an Irish Coastguard helicopter was drafted in to take her to Musgrave Hospital in Belfast.

Later at 11.35am while returning to the RNLI lifeboat station in Portaferry, the volunteer crew received a second call to alert them to two men onboard a five metre Dory that had lost power and was drifting just off Ringhaddy Sound in Strangford Lough.

The crew arrived on the scene shortly after 12 noon and took the men onboard lifeboat.

On Saturday, volunteer crews from Portaferry RNLI have carried out two separate rescue missions.

Shortly before 1pm on Saturday, the team was alerted to three children aged 10, 11 and 14, who had drifted off shore on an inflatable toy crocodile at Cloughey Bay in Co Down.

The volunteer crew was already afloat 18 miles away at an annual raft race held in Kircubbin.

They were on the scene within 40 minutes to find the youngsters had been brought to shore by the Northern Ireland Coastguard.

Brian Bailie, Portaferry RNLI Volunteer Lifeboat Operations Manager, commented: “With the good weather and the start of the holiday season it is important that everyone spending a day by the sea take sensible precautions when using inflatable toys designed for use in a swimming pool rather than the open sea.

“Thankfully on this occasion nobody was harmed, but it could very easily have turned into a much more serious incident.”

The crew was called out a second time at 4.10pm to the aid of a number of people on board a speedboat that had lost power in Strangford Lough just off Killyleagh in Co Down.

 

 

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