This article is from page 4 of the 2012-08-21 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 4 JPG
RESCUE services in Kilkee had a busy afternoon on Saturday when two separate serious incidents took place in the village.
A woman in her 60s fell from the pier wall in the village just after 1pm on Saturday afternoon, while three divers also required urgent medical attention at the same time after a suspected case of the bends, also known as Decompression Sickness or Caisson Disease.
The woman, who was walking along Kilkee pier when the incident took place, is understood to have missed a step and fallen more than 10 feet to the rocky base of the pier. Her fall was partly broken by moss and seaweed at the pier base but she still sustained a number of broken bones in the incident as well as injuries to her head.
At the same time, three divers raised the alarm with the emergency services when they reported feeling sick after aborting a dive unexpectedly following a malfunction in their equipment.
Both the Kilkee Unit of the Irish Coast Guard and the Kilkee Marine Rescue Service responded to the incidents, while the HSE ambulance was also diverted to the scene.
The woman was treated at the scene but her injuries were serious enough to require the Shannon-based coast guard helicopter to be scrambled to Kilkee to airlift her to hospital in Galway.
The three divers, who were all members of a Limerick-based subaqua club, had returned to shore and changed out of their equipment when one reported feeling unwell. One of the divers had suffered an equipment malfunction and had been forced to resurface quickly.
For safety reasons, he was accompanied by two other divers while he resurfaced. Divers who are forced to resurface too quickly can suffer from the bends, because of the quick change in water pressure. This can lead to serious injury and even death and cause an embolism or a bleed in the brain.
All four injured parties were airlifted in the same helicopter to University College Hospital in Galway where they were treated for their injuries.