VALENTIA COASTGUARD IN 12 CALL-OUTS IN ONE DAY

BANK holiday sunshine led to an extremely busy weekend for Valentia Coastguard, who responded to 12 call-outs in one day.

Valentia Coastguard, who are responsible for co-ordinating rescues, were called to a host of water-related incidents as well as two injuries on Carrauntoohil on Saturday afternoon.

Saturday was the busiest day for co-ordination centre and most of the incidents were water-based incidents attributed to the fine weather. Luckily all of them were minor – with a number of boat and yacht breakdowns as well as a few incidents concerning swimmers.

Further inland, Carrauntoohil was once again the scene of rescue alerts, with two people getting injured within minutes of each other in separate incidents.

In the more serious of the two incidents the Coast Guard Rescue Helicopter 115 was tasked to the scene and airlifted a woman with a broken ankle to University Hospital Kerry.

The second incident, which occurred at around the same time on Saturday afternoon, involved a number of people who got into difficulty on the Devil’s Ladder but managed to get to safety.

Valentia Coastguard also responded to a distress call from a military aircraft that suffered engine failure over the Atlantic on Saturday. The plane, however, landed safely at Shannon without the need for aid from rescue services.

A spokesperson for Valentia Coastguard station said that it was a very busy Bank Holiday weekend but that all incidents were relatively minor.

Meanwhile, the recent warm weather is in sharp contrast to the kind of weather recorded at Valentia Observatory in May.

The south Kerry station recorded the most rainfall (114.5mm) of Ireland’s main observatories last month. It also recorded the lowest total sunshine (179.2 hours).