When a rip current dragged a pregnant woman out to sea, Wicklow lifeboat volunteers sprang into action – and discovered she was not the only person with her life in danger

Wicklow’s inshore and all-weather lifeboat crews were alerted to reports of a missing woman on the afternoon of 2 July. They searched for her off the packed Silver Strand beach, a mile south of Wicklow Head. D class Helmsman Graham Fitzgerald was among the volunteers. ‘The adrenaline pumps, especially when you hear there’s a person in the water,’ Graham says. The crew eventually spotted the casualty in a cave, but rocks stopped them getting close to the cave entrance.

Despite the 1m swell and confused waves, Crew Member Alan Goucher courageously swam inside with a spare lifejacket. Over 200 holidaymakers anxiously watched on from the beach and cliff tops.

Inside the cave, Alan found the woman was curled up at the back of the cave, petrified. He put the lifejacket on her and brought her into an adjoining cave, out into the shallow water and into the hands of his crewmates in the D class. They continued checking the casualty’s vital signs and transferred her to the larger Tyne class lifeboat. Crew Member Carol Flahive remembers it well: ‘She looked grey. We kept her warm and talking until we got her back to the harbour.’

Meanwhile, the inshore crew headed for the beach, believing their rescue work was over. ‘We had to find her family and let them know she was okay,’ explains Alan. ‘Then I spotted a lifering up on the rocks. Something wasn’t right.’ They discovered two more casualties on the rocks: a frightened little girl and her mother,
clearly in shock.

Graham requested Coast Guard helicopter support while Alan and Crew Member Dean Mulvihill waded into the sea, scaled the rocks and began an intense 20 minutes of casualty care. Both casualties were badly cut up. ‘I bandaged the little girl’s thigh,’ says Alan. ‘There was quite a chunk missing from it. Then, suddenly, her breathing dropped. She’d swallowed a lot of seawater so I was concerned about her developing further complications.’ Alan told the helicopter winchman of the girl’s condition before she and her mother were airlifted to hospital.

The all-weather lifeboat had by now handed over the pregnant woman to an ambulance crew and returned to the scene. Lifeboat Mechanic Brendan Copeland and Crew Member Vinnie Mulvihull headed to the beach, where their casualty care skills were needed – another person had been in difficulty in the water and needed medical attention.

‘I went up through the crowds to a lady with young children wrapped around her,’ says Brendon. ‘She was distressed and shaking violently.’

It transpired that this woman had helped to get the mother and child (her sister and niece) out of the rip and up on to the rocks, the same two the lifeboat crew had just helped. Another woman – the pregnant casualty – had been helping too, before she was swept away and into the cave.

‘This lady on the beach was convinced that the pregnant woman had drowned,’ explains Brendon. ‘I reassured her that everyone was safe but she was beside herself and getting sicker by the minute.’ He found a friend on the beach to look after the youngsters before the RNLI volunteers whisked this final casualty back to the lifeboat station, where paramedics took her on to hospital.

The tired lifeboat crews stood down just after 6pm, almost 3 hours after their initial call out. All four casualties stayed in hospital until the following afternoon.

Alan Goucher: Inshore Crew | Wicklow

We couldn’t get the lifeboat into the cave with those rocks so I said that I was happy enough to swim it. I consider myself fairly fit but I was beat by the time I got into that cave. The lady was really, really cold. I put my arms around her to stop the blankets blowing away.

When we went to the mother and child, the sea took my legs away wading out to those rocks. The rip current goes both sides and that’s what caught the first woman. I was worried about that little girl but I reassured her that everything would be ok.

Casualty care skills were vital in this one and the training just kicked in. We’ve been on the courses at RNLI College and we all watch and learn from the older lads on station. I know we whinge about training early on a Sunday morning – but it works.

Offshore members can read more about rip currents on page 4 of their magazine. You can also find out how to escape a rip at RNLI.org/safety.