Thirty foot fall THE KEEPER of Old Head of Kinsale Lighthouse telephoned the honorary secretary of Courtmacsherry Harbour lifeboat station at 1630 on Saturday April 28, 1984, to say that a man had fallen down the cliff at Holeopen Bay West and was lying injured on the rocks. He asked for immediate lifeboat assistance. At 1647 Courtmacsherry's 47ft Watson class lifeboat, Helen Wycherley, with Coxswain Jeremiah O'Mahony in command, put to sea towing the station's small boarding boat. The weather was fine with a gentle south-east-by-easterly breeze, force 3, and a slight sea.

When the lifeboat arrived at the scene of the accident at 1740, Second Coxswain Daniel O'Dwyer, RNLI Boat Mechanic Mark Gannon and CrewMember Paul Mooney, rowed ashore with first aid equipment and a Neil Robertson stretcher. They climbed 20ft up the rocks to where the man was lying. He had fallen about 30ft and had a compound fracture of the femur as well as cuts and bruises. Two of the lighthouse keepers climbed down the cliff to assist the lifeboat first aiders, who splinted and bandaged the injured man and placed him in the stretcher.

Then they brought him down the cliff to the boarding boat which was rowed out to the lifeboat, some 100 yards offshore, where he was taken aboard.

As any movement was causing him pain, he was not put in the cabin but placed on the deck and covered with blankets. The coxswain asked for a doctor to meet the lifeboat at Courtmacsherry as well as the ambulance that was already on its way. At 1900 the lifeboat reached the pier at Courtmacsherry and the patient was transferred to an ambulance stretcher aboard the lifeboat, then moved to the ambulance and taken to Cork Regional Hospital.

The lifeboat was refuelled and ready for service at 2030.

For this service letters of appreciation signed by the director of the RNLI, Rear Admiral W. J. Graham, were sent to Coxswain Jeremiah A. O'Mahony and his crew and to the secretary of the Commissioners of Irish Lights, thanking the lighthouse keepers for their part in the rescue..