‘Crossed wires’ led up to disaster
Rescue team were told injured fisherman had life-threatening injuries .... He did not
POOR communication about the seriousness of an injury sustained by a fisherman was responsible for the Irish Coast Guard helicopter R116 embarking on its illfated mission, it emerged last night.
The missing aircraft was one of two search-and-rescue helicopters dispatched to carry out an emergency medical evacuation of a Scottish fisherman from a UK-registered trawler 150 miles off the west coast last Monday.
It emerged yesterday that when the crew of the R118 reached the trawler and took him off the fishing vessel, they discovered the fisherman’s injury was confined to the tip of his thumb and did not represent a threat to his life.
It is understood that the advice to conduct an emergency medical evacuation was made on the basis that the fisherman’s whole hand or a large part of his hand had been amputated in an accident.
The R116 was tasked with providing communications and safety support for the Sligo-based R118 on the 300mile round trip to the fishing vessel in the Atlantic Ocean.
But it disappeared just after 12.45am on Tuesday morning as it prepared to land at Blacksod, Co Mayo to refuel before following the R118 on the medical-evacuation mission.
Captain Dara Fitzpatrick perished, while Mark Duffy, Ciaran Smith and Paul Ormsby are still missing.
The R118 crew kept the fisherman on board for about an hour while they joined the desperate search for their missing R116 colleagues before he was landed at Blacksod from where he made the 60-mile journey to Mayo University Hospital in Castlebar by road.
Sources say the miscommunication concerning the nature of the man’s injuries was responsible for the Coast Guard helicopters being despatched last Monday.
The request for medical assistance from the UK-registered trawler was received by the Irish Coast Guard coordination centre in Malin Head at 9.40pm on Monday.
Details of the injury were communicated to the Emergency Department at Cork University Hospital (CUH), which provides a tele-medical assessment service for the Coast Guard.
It was only when the R118 reached the vessel that it was discovered that the fisherman had severed only the tip of his thumb. A spokesperson for the Irish Coast Guard said that the decision to conduct a medical-evacuation operation was made by the medical team in CUH based on information they were given by personnel on the trawler.
‘The medical team in Cork can only go on the information that’s given to them from the ship,’ he said.
‘Sometimes it can happen that there is confusion.
‘The first language of the person speaking to the medical team is not necessarily English, and sometimes the first language of the medical team in Cork is not English either.’
The spokesperson said that the injured fisherman had received first aid from two paramedics on the R118 and ‘time was no longer of the essence’ when they returned to Blacksod and joined the search for their missing colleagues.
The incident has been described as the ‘darkest hour’ for Ireland’s emergency services. Families of the other three are waiting for news that their loved ones have been found.
The mystery accident happened so fast the crew didn’t have time to issue any distress call. Piloted by Mark Duffy, the four-strong crew were en route to provide communications and safety support for the other coast guard helicopter.
The Coast Guard had asked the Air Corps for what is known as top cover support – but as no aircraft was available, the Coast Guard’s R116 had been dispatched from Dublin instead.
But moments after what appears to have been an aborted attempt to land to refuel at Blacksod refuelling stop after their trip from Dublin about two hours later, the R116 vanished from radar and smashed into the sea off the coast of Mayo.
Taoiseach, Enda Kenny is expected to visit relatives and Irish Coast Guard colleagues of the R116 crew later today.
Yesterday, there were renewed attempts to find the stricken Sikorsky S-92’s black box to help understand why the mystery crash happened.
Significantly, a signal from the black box was detected at around 4pm on Wednesday.
This is very close to their last known position and is just over 10km off the coast of the Mullet peninsula, Co. Mayo. A large amount of wreckage was discovered on rocky ground around the base of the lighthouse itself on Thursday.
‘There can be confusion’ Severed only the tip of his thumb