15 lifebuoys are stolen every week, drowning inquest hears
Rescuers could not save man who fell into the Liffey
AN inquest into the death of a man who drowned in the River Liffey when rescuers struggled to find life-saving equipment, has heard that an average of 15 lifebuoys are stolen every week in Dublin.
Dublin District Coroner’s Court was told two lifebuoy rings were missing from their stands on the night that a Tyrone man fell into the river on June 7 last year.
Daniel Cullen, 34, a former civil servant from Oaks Road, Dungannon, Co. Tyrone, drowned after falling into the Liffey at Sir John Rogerson’s Quay shortly before midnight.
Several witnesses gave evidence that rescue efforts were hampered by missing lifebuoys.
Cian Granger Stanley was in a car with his mother when they saw someone in a distressed state on the quays. He said a lifebuoy was missing from its stand when he went to assist the man who was in the water.
He estimated the stand was just four metres from where Mr Cullen fell into the river.
Mr Granger Stanley said he ran about 300 metres to another stand but that lifebuoy was also missing.
He eventually found one about 500 metres from where Mr Cullen had
‘Senseless, mindless acts of vandalism’
fallen into the river. Mr Granger Stanley said he threw the lifebuoy to Mr Cullen, who was around five metres from the quay, but he made no attempt to grab it.
Another driver who stopped, Nicole Tennison, described how she leaned over the quayside to extend a belt that she was holding to Mr Cullen to pull him out of the river.
Ms Tennison said he managed to get hold of the belt and pull himself up to his waist out of the water before losing his grip and falling back in. She recalled how Mr Cullen’s head kept slipping under the water and resurfacing before he started to become incoherent.
Ms Tennison said she believed he was not strong enough to realise the lifebuoy was beside him after someone found one and threw it to him.
She estimated the victim had been in the river for around 20 minutes and was being dragged by the current before a lifebuoy was found.
Her friend, Sonia Brown, said she persuaded one of Mr Cullen’s friends, who wanted to jump into the river, to stay on the quayside after hearing they had been drinking all day. The inquest which was adjourned from last April, had previously heard that Mr Cullen and two friends had stopped on the quays to urinate on their way home.
Dublin Fire Brigade launched a boat to try to find the casualty, while the Irish Coast Guard helicopter, Garda Air Support Unit and RNLI lifeboat were also on the scene.
A search for Mr Cullen was called off at around 4.30am and resumed later that morning. His body was found on the riverbed by a member of the Garda Water Unit at 9.57am.
Dublin City Council’s water safety officer, Gerard Carty, told the hearing yesterday that the local authority spends about €22,500 a year replacing stolen or damaged lifebuoys.
He said an average of 15 lifebuoys are stolen each week – or 600 a year.
The council has some 140 lifebuoys along rivers, canals, lakes and coasts that are inspected twice a week.
Mr Carty said the lifebuoy where Mr Cullen fell into the river was in its stand when inspected on June 4, three days before the accident.
He said theft of and damage to lifebuoys was an ongoing problem which had become worse in recent years.
In many cases, Mr Carty said it was ‘senseless, mindless acts of vandalism’ mostly by groups of teenagers and stag parties ‘who think it’s fun to interfere with live-saving devices’.
The council official said the four Dublin local authorities had run a successful pilot scheme using GPS to alert them whenever a lifebuoy was removed from its stand.
Mr Cullen’s mother Mary had earlier intervened in the hearing to say: ‘I don’t want this to happen to another family. It’s just horrendous.’
Coroner Clare Keane said a postmortem had confirmed Mr Cullen had died by drowning. She recorded a narrative verdict.