Snow heroes carry sick boy for 3km
Soldier and paramedic carry 7-yr-old through waist-high drifts
ABOVE AND BEYOND Cpl Steve Holloway and paramedic Declan Cunningham with Logan Shepherd, 7
SNOW heroes carried a sick boy 3km to get him to hospital in the nick of time.
Logan Shepherd, seven, needs medical equipment 24/7 and when Storm Emma knocked out power lines, he had to be dashed to hospital.
But blizzards and waist-high snow drifts meant no vehicles, not even the army jeep sent, could get near his home in Cleariestown, Co Wexford.
Mum Louise told the Irish Mirror yesterday: “Logan has a milk feed connected all of the time.
“When the power goes, we run the house on a generator. But that blew and my partner Michael spent hours trying to fix it.
“They had said the electric would be back on at 8pm, but when it wasn’t we were in trouble.
“We didn’t have enough charge left in the battery to get him through. Logan has a series of complex medical needs, and was just home from Crumlin Children’s Hospital.
“He went in on January 1 and only got home the Thursday beforehand.”
After a 999 call on Friday, advanced paramedic Declan Cunningham and Corporal Steve Holloway were sent to rescue him.
Louise continued: “But no one realised how bad the roads actually were. They couldn’t reach us. It was getting late at night and colder.
“They had to get out at the main road and start walking to the house.
Declan said: “It was at least three or four feet of snow. I fell at one point. It was so difficult that at one stage I fell and when I put my arm down to help myself stand up my arm went right down through the snow right up to my shoulder.
“It was hard to get back up on my feet. I tried getting a helicopter, but it was unavailable.”
With darkness creeping in, the clock was ticking. Louise said: “We wrapped Logan in as much clothing as we could. He had layers on him.
“We left the house and began walking down our road to meet them to save time.
“The snow was up to our knees and our waists in places.”
Her partner Michael, Logan’s stepdad, and daughter Amilia, nine, helped carry the rest of his specialised medical equipment that the hospital wouldn’t have.
They met the family a short distance from their home.
The pair took turns piggy-backing Logan and hauling the bags.
Louise continued on the trek with them but Michael and Amilia turned back.
She said: “I didn’t even know if they had made it back to the house OK because the phone signal was down along our road.”
Louise said there were three heroes on the day, but one wasn’t wearing a uniform. She added: “Michael tried absolutely everything that night to get the generator to work.
“He is very shy and never takes any credit for everything he does for us, but maybe here I can tell him how much he means.
“He’s not their daddy, he passed away. But he has taken them on as his own.
“It takes a really special person to take on a special child.”
■ Corporal Holloway was not only a welcome face but a familiar one too after he appeared in RTE’S First Dates Ireland last week