This article is from page 12 of the 2011-12-06 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 12 JPG
A YOUNG Kinvara garda, who risked her life to save a man who was drowning in a canal, was recognised for her bravery in a special ceremony help last week.
Garda Eileen Murphy last week received a Certificate of Bravery for rescuing a man from the canal in Mullingar in April of 2010.
Garda Murphy was called to the Dublin Bridge in Mullingar on the evening April 2, 2010, where a man was reportedly in a distressed state. When she arrived she could not locate the man on the bridge but soon located him on the canal itself.
As her accompanying officer, Garda Kevin Mooney, could not swim, Eileen risked her own life to enter the water and save the man.
“I remember we were on night duty at the time and I got a call at around 1am in the morning to say that a gentleman was quite distressed around the canal. We could not locate him for a while but we could hear him – it was very dark,” she said.
“We located him after a few minutes and at that point he was starting to go under the water. I knew Garda Mooney was not a confident swimmer so my first reaction was to go in and try to get him. I didn’t really think about it. We tried to talk to him at the beginning but he really wasn’t being very co-operative.
“So my initial reaction, once I saw him going under the water, was to just go for it – I didn’t think about it to be honest. I had to go underneath the water to bring him up and when I did get him to the surface he started to struggle. He panicked and tried to push me down under to save himself. The other garda was able to come into the water and bring us both out.
“I never thought I would be put in a situation like this. Thankfully things worked out well in the end. I know it could have been a very different story, I know that now, so I am just thankful that things worked out okay for me.”
One of Eileen sisters, Garda Sarah Murphy, is currently stationed in Ennis while her sister Aideen, runs a pre-school in Corofin.