This article is from page 2 of the 2008-08-05 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 2 JPG
ENNIS firemen claimed yesterday that lives lost in the River Fergus could have been saved if they had proper training and equipment to Lau COMO MUR MLSE oe
A spokesman also revealed that firefighters have to perform their du- ties without the most basic of equip- ment — a defibrillator for victims suf- fering cardiac arrest.
Without the training, firemen have- to stay six metres back from the riv- er’s edge in a river rescue operation.
“If we see someone in the river in trouble and want to go rescue that person, we are told “if ye go into the river, ye are fired”.
The spokesman said that on aver- age, Ennis firefighters received five river rescue call-outs each year.
“We need this training, especially with the amount of river rescues we are having. If we were allowed into the water, a lot more people could have been saved. That is a fact.
“We can have a boat in the water in six minutes and in that time you have a fair good chance of saving people.”
The fire service’s shortcomings were exposed in the recent rescue at- tempts for young Martin McDonagh who drowned in the River Fergus last month.
“We carried out CPR on him for 20 minutes because we had no defibril-
lator. A defibrillator was essential WN Komee
The fireman said that itis not known if having a defibrillator would have saved young Martin’s life as it is not known how long he was in the river before being taken from the water.
He said fire service management had a wrong set of priorites where it spent €100,000 on training and equipment for a chemical incident where there has been only two call- outs over the past two years.
Clare Fire Chief, Adrian Kelly said they hadn’t refused funding for a de- fibrillator or river rescue training.
‘The level of equipment, fire appli- ances and training provided is on a par with the best in the country.
“The HSE ambulance service pro- vide advanced first aid, including de- fibrillators and we have been in talks with the HSE regarding how call-out arrangements could complement their services while still maintaining our primary function of providing fire cover.
“All firefighters have received water awareness training, mainly for their own Safety but it also included tech- niques in river rescue. We are there to assist the gardai who are responsible for co-ordinating any such rescues, and the coastguard who are highly trained in water rescue. Equipment, including flotation devices and throw bags, were also purchased for this purpose.