This article is from page 16 of the 2008-03-25 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 16 JPG
THE number of incidents responded to by the Doolin Unit of the Irish Coast Guard increased by 25 per cent last year. The Doolin Unit responded to a total of 30 incidents in 2007 compared to 24 throughout 2006. This increase in coast guard activ- ity has been mirrored throughout the country with overall incidents increasing by 8.5 per cent year-on-
year in 2007. According to figures released last week, incidents involv- ing the Coast Guard increased from 1807 in 2006 to 1961 last year.
Indeed the number of incidents has increased steadily in each of the last 8 years, growing from 1718 in 2000.
Last year’s rise mainly involved adventure sports with surfing, diving and caving incidents increasing by 31 per cent, 120 per cent and 400 per cent respectively.
‘Adventure sports are becoming the norm all over the place. If you look at Aileen’s wave under the Cliffs, peo- ple are surfing that now the same as if they were surfing in the beach in Lahinch,” said Matty Shannon of Doolin Coast Guard.
“People are getting into more ex- treme adventure sports. They get the newest technology and the newest equipment but that doesn’t mean that a accident won’t happen.
“There are so many different things that contribute to an accident, a lot of the time it is just luck.”
Mr Shannon has called for people to take more personal responsibility before they put themselves in harm’s WENA
“People never think that it will happen to them, they think that ac- cidents only happen to other people. People have to be responsible for themselves, we are a response serv-
ice. We are a response service and we are volunteers. We cannot be in the station all day every day waiting for something to happen. So people must realise that it will take 15 or 20 minutes for us to get to them. They need to take responsibility for this themselves,” he said.
The coast guard figures also show a 75 per cent increase in incidents in- volving shore anglers and 38 per cent increase in nuisance calls.