When Skerries sea swimmer Sean O’Kelly became hypothermic during a swim around Colt Island, he didn’t quite believe it. ‘I could hear a voice saying: “Are you alright?”,’ he recalls, ‘I kept saying: “Yeah,” – but I wasn’t’

For Sean – a cold-water veteran, the feeling was disconcerting: ‘I’d never been hypothermic before, despite swimming year-round with the Frosties [a local swimming group] for the last 5 years. I felt completely out of control of my body. I couldn’t make any headway.’ Sean had completed the circuit many times without incident. But when another swimmer got into difficulty near the island at the end of October, it unwittingly set the stage for his own predicament on the return leg. Wanting to ensure their companion was safe, Sean, and two other swimmers, left the water for 15 minutes, before continuing their swim. ‘We’re all really competent swimmers,’ Sean says, ‘but I think getting out and then back in made things worse, with the wind chill.’

‘Another few minutes and he may have been totally unresponsive’
Gerry Canning, Skerries Crew Member

Sean had experienced a phenomenon called afterdrop – a sudden decrease in body temperature after leaving the water. Already dangerously cold, Sean’s core temperature continued to fall on the swim back. He began to experience numbness and loss of coordination. ‘I knew I was in trouble,’ he remembers, ‘I had to stop every minute and tell my shoulders to work. They were seizing up and I could feel my legs dragging in the water. It felt like I just had to stop swimming.’ Dive Instructor and Cardiac Nurse Catherine McMahon noticed Sean falling behind as the current pulled him towards Red Island. ‘I called to ask if he was okay. When he said: “No, I’m not”, I swam back to be with him. ‘You can see when people are getting hypothermic. Sean was floating okay but his legs weren’t responding,’ she adds, echoing Sean’s own experience. ‘He just wasn’t moving forward.’ Skerries RNLI Crew Members Gerry Canning and Steven Johnston, and Helm Peter Kennedy were undertaking casualty care training, when they heard the call to the Coast Guard. ‘You won’t get a much quicker launch than when there’s already a full crew in the station training,’ says Gerry. ‘Speed of response is crucial in cases like this as the effects of cold water can cause a casualty’s condition to worsen quickly.’ Steven adds: ‘It was lucky we were at the station. Another few minutes and he may have been totally unresponsive. We found them quickly but he was just staring into space and shivering.’ The crew rushed Sean back to the station, where he was treated by GP Seamus Mulholland: ‘The big danger is cardiac arrhythmia or cardiac arrest,’ he explains. ‘Sean’s a very fit guy but it took the best part of an hour to warm him back up.’ After his experience, Sean has an even deeper respect for the water. ‘I’d never had a scare like that before. I’ve been going shorter distances,’
he says, ‘and I get out before I get cold!’ Words: Anna Burn
Photos: RNLI/Anna Burn, Gerry Canning

‘He was really shivering badly’

‘It’s hard not to think the worst. It was a cold day and a person in the water isn’t going to last very long. They did right sticking together and looking out for each other. ‘Ten minutes earlier we’d been in the station talking about hypothermia, so it was in our heads. He was really shivering badly and we were conscious that he wasn’t actively talking to us. ‘There was no way we were returning him to the shore; he needed to come to the station.’

PETER KENNEDY
HELM | SKERRIES LIFEBOAT STATION