Reaching for his mobile phone, a kayaker went overboard. Cold and tired, he couldn’t get back onboard – or call for help

Lifeboat Helm Patsy O’Mahony was relaxing at home on a Sunday afternoon in February when his phone rang. It was his friend Olan. A man was in the sea with a kayak, struggling to swim back to shore. Patsy immediately alerted the lifeboat operations manager at Youghal Lifeboat Station. Responding to their pagers, lifeboat volunteers John Griffin, Eddie Hennessy and Martin Morris dropped everything and rushed to the lifeboat station. With Patsy at the helm, they were with the kayaker 4 minutes after launching. Drifting offshore ‘It was only when we got there that I realised how serious things were,’ Patsy recalls. ‘I estimate he’d fallen in near the harbour entrance and drifted about a mile offshore. He’d been in the water for up to 45 minutes.’ It was a minor miracle the man was still alive. The sea temperature off the Irish coast at this time of year is 9°C – enough for cold water shock to steal the air from your lungs and leave you helpless. ‘I’m a kayaker myself and I know these waters well,’ reflects Patsy.
‘Without a wetsuit in winter you’re unlikely to survive more than a few minutes. With the casualty safely onboard, the crew were able to do a proper assessment. ‘He wasn’t in great shape,’ admits Patsy. ‘He was showing signs of hypothermia. Our priority was to get him on oxygen and back to the station where we could warm him up. ‘We began first aid, reassured him and made him as comfortable as we could. We hugged him and put a neoprene hood over his head to keep him warm.’ Deteriorating quickly Other volunteers were getting ready with blankets and a stretcher to carry the casualty 150m from the beach to the boathouse. Patsy explains: ‘Putting the lifeboat back onto the trolley would have tied up the shore crew and wasted valuable time. We beached her instead, got her right in, gently, touching her on the stones. ‘We stripped the casualty of his clothes, wrapped him in blankets and got him on oxygen. His condition had deteriorated. He was conscious but he was shaking violently. He seemed to be giving up, you know? He was so relieved to be out of the water, the fight was out of him.’ Although the kayaker had a means of calling for help, it wasn’t easy for him to get at it. ‘It was a sit-on kayak and he had a mobile phone in one of the hatches,’ says Crew Member Eddie Hennessy. ‘He reached for it and lost his balance, ending up in the water. He just wasn’t able to get himself back on.’

Unable to open the hatch because his fingers were so cold, the man had spent the first 15 minutes crying out for help. ‘He was quite calm when we got to him,’ says Patsy. ‘He’d gone into a calm place, given up, accepted his fate. It took the kayaker – who had been on holiday with his wife – 3 days in
hospital to recover. The following week he returned to Youghal to thank his rescuers personally and give them a card (pictured, above).

Words: Robin Westcott | Photos: RNLI/Youghal

Know what to do
Always carry a means of calling for help, and keep it within reach. For more advice, see RNLI.org/kayaking

PATSY O’MAHONY
HELM YOUGHAL

In training we try to make our scenarios as realistic as possible. But things are different when you have an actual casualty in the water. You need a level head. You’ve got to stay calm. ‘But the casualty care was where the real lifesaving was done on this rescue. It was a team effort – the whole team was outstanding. When someone comes back alive you realise the importance of what you’re doing as a volunteer.’